Loss of identity: slavery and land-stealing. An approach to african american and native american literature

Abstract

[EN] To build one self’s identity is not certainly an effortless process. It is greatly shaped by our interaction with both our every-day life, i.e. how we tackle the issues which arise from it, and the people who surround such reality (Davis and Gandy 369). This could confirm the idea that identity is a key feature which all humans possess. Moreover, it is proved that identity results vital as well amongst communities which have been oppressed for long, such as Native Americans (Wexler 267) and African Americans (Loyd and Williams 30). Building up on this thread, the reality that these two communities have had to endure has made the process of creating said identity more demanding and challenging. Not only this, but also that their existent identity started to gradually vanish. In the United States, for a few centuries, African Americans were used as slaves and Native American lands were stolen. These two historical events were effected by colonizing forces, always subject to the white man. The way in which those two communities could reflect said reality was partly thanks to literature. This is the reason why I treat literature as a mirror of history in my research. In this work, it is my aim to establish the connection between slavery and land-stealing and their effect on the identity of both African American and Native American communities. The sources that I will utilize are literary texts written by individuals who belong to these two communities: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Speech at Lancaster, and Life of Black Hawk. The first two narratives demonstrate how slavery was an act which caused enslaved African Americans to feel that their identity was disappearing. Moreover, the female point of view present in the second narrative gives us hints of how a double oppression regarding gender and race functions. The last two are written by Native Americans who also exhibited the negative effect of land stealing on their identity. Thus, I argue that owing to these two historical processes the identity of these people was indeed put at risk and almost disappeared for a long time.