As voices echo ideas of independence from Britain, the settlers of the North American colonies remain divided in their stances and approaches on establishing a new country. The increasing division in the colonies soon seeps into the American view of the self.
Growing philosophical and political interest in independence influenced America’s literary landscape. America looked at ideas from European Enlightenment, such as The Social Contract by Rousseau as well as John Locke’s idea of all peoples being born a blank slate or tabula rasa all point toward the natural rights of “life, liberty, and landownership” – later modified as the “pursuit of happiness” (Norton). Instead of predestination, people began accepting Deism’s non-intervening creator. Americans no longer felt confined or predisposed and began seeing themselves as increasingly separate from Europe.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain
(Belasco 431)
In 1761 a young, sickly girl arrived to America, who the Wheatleys purchased, educated, and used for intellectual entertainment (Belasco 427). They named her Phillis Wheatley. Her poetry contains influences from neoclassics, Alexander Pope, political ideas from the Enlightenment, the Bible, and Greek mythology. Her experiences as a slave appear in her works, however, she remains limited in what she can say (Norton). Wheatley’s poems mark the beginnings of internalized racism in African-American literature, seen in her poems “On Being Brought from Africa to America” and “To the Right Honourable Earl of Dartmouth.” And, despite her enslavement, her poems still express patriotism and admiration for freedom. Where such expressed thoughts and sentiments come from may remain unknown. Wheatley’s religion, humbleness, and logic remain at her, and America’s, core. The self during this era sees a chance at freedom.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.
(Belasco 430)