If I Stay In This Bloody Land David Walker Summary

David Walker was born a free black man in Wilmington, North Carolina, September 28th, 1785. His mother was a free black woman, and his father was a slave. Walkers father passed away a few months before he was born. In his Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, in reference to the cruelty of slavery he observed, Walker stated, “If I remain in this bloody land, I will not live long. As true as g-d reigns, I will be avenged for the sorrow, which my people have suffered. This is not the place for me- no, no. I must leave this part of the country. It will be a great trial for me to live on the same soil where so many men are in slavery; certainly I cannot remain where I must hear their chains continually, and where I must encounter the insults

David Walker describes the fact that slaves are humans just as much as their White American masters are. He states the pressing matter is that “You [colored people] have to prove to the Americans and the world, that we are MEN and not brutes, as we have been represented and by millions treated.” (Page 33) He asks the question “How can those enemies but say that we and our children are not of the HUMAN FAMILY, but were made by our Creator to be an inheritance?” Although nowadays many people agree that black people have the same anatomy as whites do, but back then many people did not view blacks as equals to themselves. He explains in great detail of how a black woman was punished because she helped save the life of the slave driver who was transporting her and fifty-nine other slaves. This article further proves David Walker’s argument in which Slaves are men too and are not treated, as they should

Article IV is repetitive information from Article II with minor specificity in describing slaves as being American Men and not just men. David Walker states, “This country is as much ours as it is the whites, whether they will admit it now or not, they will see and believe it by and by.” (Page 55) and “This land which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and the gospel is free.” (Page 57) This is contradicting however because not all slaves were born on American soil. Most slaves were imported from Africa against their will and sold at Slave Auctions. David Walker reasons that White Americans do not look at colored as equals. He argues that White Americans think that they better than those that are colored. Some opinions of White Americans he uses are that those who are colored are incapable of self- government, and that those who are colored are satisfied to rest in slavery to their masters and their master’s children. He also introduces the opinion that White Americans believe that “If we [Colored People] were set free in America, we would involve the country in a civil war, which assertion is altogether at variance with our feeling or design, for we ask them for nothing but the rights of man.” (Page 65) This is ironic because a few years later in 1861 the American Civil War began to determine the survival of