Analysis of Henry Highland Garnets speech Let your motto be resistance Essays

Analysis of Henry Highland Garnets speech Let your motto be resistance Essays Analysis of Henry Highland Garnets speech Let your motto be resistance Paper Analysis of Henry Highland Garnets speech Let your motto be resistance Paper with the idea of black citizenship bringing into question the American Judicial system where in the in 1660s many states (New York, Maryland, Carolina, Virginia) had ruled that black Americans did not have American citizenship (Jordan.1968.16). Throughout the speech Let your motto be resistance we can see Garnets Presbyterian clergy tendencies with the speech being presented as if it were almost a church mass with Garnet first addressing all the oppressed sympathise with each other, then informing the people of what action God sees as the right road to freedom you should use the same manner of resistance as would have been just in our ancestors before finishing on an almost urge for the black slaves to go forth and spread the word of slave rebellion with the repletion of Die freemen than live to be slaves. This religious way of speaking combined with references to ancestors and the glory of Africa creates a link between Henry Highland Garnet and both Heathen and Christian slaves allowing for all groups to be drawn into the speech. The main argument of Let your motto be resistance is that there is a need for black slaves to resist slavery and resort to violence if necessary, with lines such as not much for redemption without the shedding of blood suggesting a need for the continuation of rebellion like the Turner revolt of 1831, where fifty nine white people were killed (Kolchin. 1993. 156). Its as if Henry Garnet was arguing this because violent acts seemed to place fear and a need to change in peoples hearts to a greater extent then the white abolitionists moral crusade (although these revolts normally ended in harsher measures being introduced an as with the turner revolt many slaves being hung), this can be seen with the line The time has come when you must act for yourselves. Throughout Let your motto be resistance we can see an intense form of rhetoric occurring in an attempt to persuade the audience that action was need to get anywhere in the war against slavery, with one of Henry Garnets major arguments being that God would not except slavery as an argument for going against the commandments and Christian way of life The forlorn condition you are in does NOT destroy your moral obligation to God.God will not receive slavery nor ignorance nor any other state of mind, for love and obedience to him. Not only would this continue the religious link between Garnet and the audience but it would also install an amount of fear that if one did not do all they could to escape and end slavery then god would punish them instead of punishment falling upon slave owners. This ideal is reinforced latter in Let your motto be resistance when slave owners are referred to as devils, suggesting that that by not trying to escape from oppression slaves were actually working a gainst Gods will under the Devil. This attack against slave owners continues with he who brings his fellow down so low as to make him contented with a condition of slavery commits the highest crime against God. This condemnation of slave owners as being the worst criminals allows one direct group for Garnet to aim an attack at, instead of just plantation owners, this gives the impression of an almost war like situation , with all slave owners on one side and a united slave nation on the other. It could be argued that garnet through arguing that slavery is against Gods will he could also be referring to the continued injustice of black slavery since in 1661 a Maryland court ruled that an Irish youth should have his slavery time shortened to three years from fifteen because it was contrary to the laws of God, which meant an American court had all ready agreed that the slave trade was morally wrong. It is unlikely that Garnets speech would have made much of an actual change despite provoking controversy, it was more acting as a motivational speech and trying to give direction to a population that had recently won a massive step forward over the Amistad revolt in 1839 where a ship of illegally taken slaves from Africa killed the crew of the ship Amistad and were found legally clear of murder in new York. This brought into question the ideal of slavery and whether black slaves were acting as freedom fighters throughout the various revolts.