The American in Algiers (1797) as an Abolitionist Poem: the Appropriation of White Slavery in Algiers as an Appeal against Black Slavery in the United States

Abstract

This paper has studied the issue that The American in Algiers (1797) is an abolitionist poem. As the poem is anonymously published by an American writer, it is read from a new historicist and cultural materialist perspective. Therefore, it is considered in the light of other American writings, literary or not, that were produced in the 1790s and dealt with the captives of Algiers crisis or slavery in the United States along with the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. The point is that the poem appropriates the crisis of the so-called captivity and enslavement of American citizens in Algiers to appeal against black slavery in the United States. This is achieved through drawing analogies between the political and religious factors behind the slavery practice both in Algiers and the United States as well as revealing the inhumanity of the practice. Doing so allows the poet raise abolitionist concern on the part of the Americans, who are outraged by the enslavement of their citizens in Algiers but carry on exploiting black slaves in their own soil.