David Walker's Appeal Analysis

David Walker’s Appeal serves as a call to action to all black people in America – free or not. In hopes to enlighten the enslaved people and abolitionists in America, he addresses the injustices he and his people face in their daily lives along with his radicalistic ideas on how to rebel against their natural enemies. At the time, Walker’s strategies for freedom were very controversial and dangerous as he shared his views regarding the immediate abolition of slavery as opposed to a more gradual approach. Even though David Walker’s Appeal did not result in any significant acts of resistance from the oppressed people of color, his ideas did prove to be revolutionary to abolitionists during the nineteenth century.
Walker uses his Appeal to emphasize …show more content…
His main purpose in that was to show the slaves how easily they are controlled by their white masters. Slaves often did not stand together as one, they lacked unity. The lack of unity amongst the slaves can be seen as one of the prime reasons that attempts for insurrection were rarely successful. Some slaves would willingly betray other slaves who wanted to revolt. The slave owners were aware of the betrayal that transpired, and took advantage of it. They readily, and without conscious, beat, and even murdered innocent slaves. These same acts of betrayal can be seen with free African Americans in the North, some of whom were allied with the whites would return escaped slaves back to the abject life they so desperately wanted to be free from. Walker solemnly believed that unless the slaves recognized that their enslavement was unjust, they would continue a life of wretchedness. He believes once the enslaved people release their anger and avenge themselves they will not be able to stop, the slave owners were aware of this and that is why slaves were so terribly punished for educating themselves. Pride and avarice were the driving force behind the white man’s capability to kill any person of color without feeling, this is why the whites could so easily control the blacks. Walker also asks his audience to begin educating themselves in hopes to deliver the slaves from ignorance, which in turn, will give them the understanding behind what slave owners so badly did not want them to