An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans

"An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans" by Lydia Maria Child is a socio-political treatise written in the early 19th century. This work passionately advocates for the rights of African Americans while denouncing the institution of slavery and the injustices it engenders. Child aims to awaken readers to the moral imperative of abolishing slavery and to consider the plight of African Americans as deserving of empathy and justice. At the start of the text, Child appeals directly to her readers, urging them to engage with her arguments regardless of their personal biases against the subject. She references historical instances of the slave trade and provides a brief overview of its catastrophic effects on Africa and its peoples, emphasizing the brutal nature of slavery and the exploitative practices that have arisen from it. The opening portion serves as a call to conscience, aiming to confront readers with the moral decay represented by the institution of slavery and rally them towards advocating for human rights and dignity. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Lydia Maria Child was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, Native American rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American expansionism. Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories.