Love And Marriage in Early African America

by Foster, Frances Smith

• ISBN13: 9781555536763
• ISBN10: 155553676X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-12-31
• Publisher: Northeastern Univ Pr

Summary

Love and Marriage in Early African America brings together a remarkable range of folk sayings, rhymes, songs, poems, letters, lectures, sermons, short stories, memoirs, and autobiographies. Spanning over 100 years, from the slave era to the New Negro Movement, this extraordinary collection contradicts or nuances established notions that slavery fractured families, devalued sexual morality, distorted gender roles, and set in motion forces that now produce dismal and dangerous domestic situations. A culmination of twenty years of diligent research by noted scholar Frances Smith Foster, this anthology features selections on love and courtship, marriage, marriage rituals, and family. A compelling introduction places the primary texts in their social and literary context. A bibliography offers suggestions for further reading. This volume includes materials by well known writers such as Frances E. W. Harper, Charles Chesnutt, and Alice Dunbar Nelson, but the majority of works are previously unknown or difficult-to-access materials. Many provide startling contrasts to representations in canonical literature. For example, "Patrick Brown's First Love" is a radical alternative to Frederick Douglass's "The Heroic Slave," and Thomas Detter's "The Octoroon" replaces the traditionally tragic mulatto trope with a female protagonist who shocks and awes. Love and Marriage in Early African America also changes our ideas about the relationship between religion and politics in early African America by featuring texts from the Afro-Protestant press; that is, the publishing organizations, writers, and reading groups under the direct auspices of, or publicly associated with, Afro-Protestant churches.

Author Biography

FRANCES SMITH FOSTER is Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Women's Studies and Chair of the English Department at Emory University. Her previous publications include Witnessing Slavery: The Development of the Ante-Bellum Slave Narrative, and Written By Herself: Literary Production by African American Women Writers, 1746-1892. Professor Foster has edited or co-edited numerous volumes, including, most notably, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature and The Oxford Companion to African American Literature.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Introduction: By Way of an Open Letter to My Sister
In Love - With Love
Lyrics - Section 1
What's You Lookin' at Me Fer?	p. 3
Love Is Jes a Thing o' Fancy	p. 3
You Loves Yo' Gal?	p. 4
Creole Candio	p. 5
One Sweet Kiss	p. 6
On Friendship	p. 6
Philis' Reply	p. 7
Behave Yourself, from Freedom's Journal	p. 9
Lines to My -	p. 11
Courting in Connecticut, from Provincial Freeman	p. 12
To Annie, from the Pacific Appeal	p. 14
To Miss W	p. 15
Dedicated to a Young Lady	p. 16
A Negro Love Song	p. 18
Dinah Kneading Dough	p. 19
Show Your Love	p. 20
The Parting Kiss	p. 21
Jessie and I	p. 22
Kiss Me Again	p. 23
Love's Lament	p. 24
Filled with You	p. 25
Lyrics - Section 2
Does You Lak Strawberries?	p. 26
W'en I Wus a "Roustabout"	p. 26
She Hug Me	p. 27
A Letter	p. 27
You Nasty Dog!	p. 28
Pretty Liddle Pink	p. 28
Is It So? from Freedom's Journal	p. 29
Stanzas, from Freedom's Journal	p. 30
To Eliza	p. 31
Forget Me Not	p. 32
Farewell to Frances	p. 34
A Love Song	p. 35
A Double Standard	p. 36
Sence You Went Away	p. 38
Regret	p. 39
Violets	p. 39
The Heart of a Woman	p. 40
Fiction
A Christmas Sketch	p. 41
Violets	p. 46
"There Was One Time!"	p. 48
Letters
From Phillis Wheatley to Obour Tanner	p. 63
From Harriet to Freedom's Journal	p. 65
From Amelia to Freedom's Journal	p. 67
From Criticus to Freedom's Journal	p. 68
From Tom Little to Freedom's Journal	p. 69
From Henry H. Garnet to "Dear Friend"	p. 71
From William H. Wormley to Catto	p. 72
From Addie Brown to Rebecca Primus	p. 73
Autobiographical Accounts
William Grimes, from Life of William Grimes	p. 78
James Williams, from Life and Adventures of James Williams	p. 80
Fannie Berry, from Federal Writers Project (ca. 1937)	p. 81
Whether to Marry - and Who?
Lyrics
Aurore Pradere	p. 85
W'en I Goes to Marry	p. 86
Lines, Written on hearing a beautiful Young Lady express a determination to live an Old Maid, from Freedom's Journal	p. 87
A Young Lady's Soliloquy, from the Christian Recorder	p. 88
The Cheerless Condition of Bachelorship	p. 89
Report	p. 90
Advice to Girls	p. 92
The Young Man's Comforter	p. 92
One to Love	p. 93
Fiction
A Woman and an Angel, from Provincial Freeman	p. 94
The Two Offers	p. 97
Nonfiction
On Marriage, from The Doctrines and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church	p. 106
A Bachelor's Thermometer, from Freedom's Journal	p. 107
The Old Maid's Diary, from Freedom's Journal	p. 109
"Sic a Wife,", from Freedom's Journal	p. 111
An Unmarried Woman, from Freedom's Journal	p. 113
A Gold Repeater, from Freedom's Journal	p. 113
Lewis White Advertises, from Freedom's Journal	p. 114
Two School Girls	p. 115
A Bachelor Advertises, from Provincial Freeman	p. 117
Matrimony, from Repository of Religion and Literature	p. 118
To Avoid a Bad Husband, from the Christian Recorder	p. 123
The Pleasures of Single Life, from the Pacific Appeal	p. 124
Young Ladies of To-Day, from the Christian Recorder	p. 126
How to Make Bean Soup, from the Christian Recorder	p. 127
Yoked Unequally, from the Christian Recorder	p. 128
Bigamy, from Life and Adventures of James Williams	p. 130
Proposals and Vows
Lyrics
Wedding Colors	p. 133
Slave Marriage	p. 133
Written in a Bride's Album	p. 134
Marriage	p. 135
Fiction
Conversation, from Southern Workman	p. 136
Nonfiction
Miseries of an Engaged Man, from Freedom's Journal	p. 139
Miseries of an Engaged Woman, from Freedom's Journal	p. 141
Getting Married without Knowing How It Was to Be Done, from the Christian Recorder	p. 144
Marriage of Rev. John Beckett to Miss Kate Campbell, from the Christian Recorder	p. 145
Autobiographical Accounts
Thomas Tompkins, from Freedom's Journal	p. 147
William Grimes, from Life of William Grimes	p. 149
Harriet Jacobs, from Incidents in the Life	p. 150
When Two of the Slaves	p. 156
The War Went On, from Ophelia Settle Egypt, Unwritten History of Slavery	p. 156
Iffen Any of the Slaves	p. 157
I Had a Nice Weddin'	p. 157
De Way Dey Done	p. 157
Married Life
Lyrics
Three Months Married	p. 161
To a Lady on the Death of Her Husband	p. 162
To the Bride, from Freedom's Journal	p. 163
Connubial Felicity	p. 164
The Fugitive's Wife	p. 165
The Old Couple, from the Christian Recorder	p. 166
The Wife's Invocation	p. 169
To Elder T. Wellington Henderson, from the Christian Recorder	p. 170
Dearest	p. 172
To My Absent Wife	p. 173
To Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Johnson	p. 174
Tired	p. 175
Fiction
Dialogue between a Newly Married Couple, from Provincial Freeman	p. 176
Mr. Pepper's Wife, from Provincial Freeman	p. 178
Patrick Brown's First Love, from the Anglo-African Magazine	p. 183
Anecdotal: An Old and True Friend, from the Christian Recorder	p. 187
Octoroon Slave of Cuba	p. 188
The Wife of His Youth	p. 203
Bro'r Abr'm Jimson's Wedding	p. 213
Nonfiction
Whisper to a Wife, from Colored American	p. 226
The Intemperate Husband, from Colored American	p. 227
Tell Your Wife, from Pacific Appeal	p. 229
A Chapter for Young Husbands, from the Christian Recorder	p. 230
A Tin Wedding, from the Christian Recorder	p. 233
A Bereaved Wife, from the Christian Recorder	p. 234
Letters
From Jane Stephens to Freedom's Journal	p. 235
From James Stephens to Freedom's Journal	p. 236
From George Pleasant to Agnes Hobbs	p. 237
From Marie Perkins to Husband	p. 238
From Abream Scriven to Wife	p. 238
From Harriet Newby to Dangerfield Newby	p. 239
From Harriet Newby to Dangerfield Newby	p. 240
From Ann to Husband	p. 241
Autobiographical Accounts
from Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee	p. 242
from Narrative of Lunsford Lane	p. 245
from The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb	p. 247
from Father Henson's Story of His Own Life	p. 254
from A Narrative of the Life of Rev. Noah Davis	p. 258
from The Narrative of the Life of J. D. Green	p. 260
from Behind the Scenes	p. 261
Family Trees Rooted - in Love
Lyrics
Daughter's Inquiry	p. 265
Our Family Tree	p. 267
My Child, from Provincial Freeman	p. 268
Old Grimes' Son, from Life of William Grimes	p. 270
The Home for Me, from the Christian Recorder	p. 272
The Lonely Mother	p. 273
Fiction
Charles and Clara Hayes	p. 274
Dialogue Between a Mother and Her Children on the Precious Stones	p. 278
The Voice of the Rich Pudding	p. 282
Letters
From John H. Rapier to His Son John	p. 288
From Parker Smith to "My dear Sir"	p. 289
From Rebecca Primus to Parents and Sister	p. 290
From Dave Waldro to Cousin	p. 292
Information Wanted, from the Christian Recorder	p. 293
Information Wanted from the Christian Recorder, January 6, 1893	p. 295
Nonfiction
The Dying Bed of a Mother, from Colored American	p. 297
The Use of Grandmothers, from the Christian Recorder	p. 298
Aunt Jennie the Old Maid, from the Christian Recorder	p. 299
Autobiographical Accounts
from Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro	p. 301
from Life of William Grimes	p. 310
from Narrative of a Refugee Slave	p. 311
from Life and Adventures of James Williams	p. 313
My Mother as I Recall Her	p. 314
Of the Passing of the First-Born	p. 322
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