Introduction: Talking Books

James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw and the Metaphor of the "Talking Book"

"[My Master] used to read prayers in public to the ship's crew every Sabbath day; and then I saw him read. I was never so surprised in my life, as when I saw the book talk to my master, for I thought it did as I observed him to look upon it, and move his lips. I wished it would do so with me. As soon as my master had done reading, I followed him to the place where he put the book, being mightily delighted with it, and when nobody saw me, I opened it, and put my ear down close upon it, in great hopes that it would say something to me; but I was sorry, and greatly disappointed, when I found that it would not speak. This thought immediately presented itself to me, that every body and every thing despised me because I was black" (qtd xxxvi). 

In the following video, an actor performs the script of Gronniosaw's narrative:

The metaphor of the "Talking Book" is a central and significant one to African American Literature. Denied the basic right of an education and forcibly consigned to using the "King's English" to communicate, African American slaves and their descendants called upon the remnants of their tribal past to express themselves. The storyteller of the West African tradition, or griot, was held in high esteem because he or she was considered the keeper of lore and tradition. However, when African slaves were displaced to the New World, they were forced to give up their native language and customs and denied access to written text. These statutes were in place to reinforce servitude among the African slaves and to hold them in ignorance. The editors of our text observe this statute from 1739 that followed the Stono Rebellion. This statute imposed penalties on slave holders for educating their slaves:

“And whereas the having of slaves taught to write, or suffering them to be employed in writing, may be attending with great inconveniences; Be it enacted, that all and every person and persons whatsoever, who shall hereafter teach, or cause any slave or slaves to be taught to write, or shall use or employ any slave as a scribe in any manner of writing whatsoever, hereafter taught to write; every such person or persons shall, for every offense, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds current money” (xxxvii). 

Little wonder why a persecuted people would locate the means to freedom from bondage in the written text. Even the tradition of communication through the practice of beating a drum in the evening was outlawed by white slave holders in the eighteenth century:

“And for that as it is absolutely necessary to the safety of this Province, that all due care be taken to restrain the wanderings and meetings of negroes and other slaves, at all times, and more especially on Saturday nights, Sundays and other holidays, and their using and carrying wooden swords, and other mischievous and dangerous weapons, or using or keeping of drums, horns, or other loud instruments, which may call together or give sign or notice to one another of their wicked designs and purposes…And whatsoever master, owner or overseer shall permit or suffer his or their negro or other slave or slaves, at any time hereafter, or beat drums, blow horns, or use any other loud instruments, or whosoever shall suffer and countenance any public meetings or seatings or strange negroes or slaves in their plantations, shall forfeit 10 current money for every such offence” (xxxvii).

The African American literary tradition has been since its inception, grounded in the orality and vernacular traditions of its ancestors. The transmission of folk tales, songs, wisdom, and spirituality by word of mouth was the means by which tribal people communicated. Therefore this tradition has become an empowering mode of resistance and creativity within the African American Literary tradition. The idea of the "Talking Book" would permeate and persist throughout the centuries of African American storytelling. In the early twentieth century, author and ethnographer Zora Neale Hurston sought to capture the lyricism and dynamic quality of African American vernacular; more than that, she sought to recreate the way African American folk interacted and elevated dialogue to the spoken performance. For Hurston's "folk" characters, the spoken word and the voice were central to self-revelation.

Other, more contemporary authors such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison call upon the traditions of ancestors to recreate the spoken word and the performativity of Africana tradition. In her essay "Rootedness: The Ancestor as Tradition" Toni Morrison describes the role of the author as being similar to that of the tribal griot. One must be "in the culture/of the culture" but must also speak for the culture. Further, she reveals her endeavor to recreate the performance and uniqueness of African American dialect and dialogue--thereby creating a kind of "Talking Book."

However, the early writers of slave narratives such as Gronniosaw, Olaudah Equiano, Cugoano, John Jea and John Marrant, faced the bullying Euro-centric culture of eighteenth-century America. The printed text was prioritized, and the cultural production of Europe was considered the standard by which all art was measured. Art and literature produced by those of African descent was considered inferior, because its producers were considered "not human." Therefore, the first priority of the earliest writers of narrative was to prove his own merits--to prove that he was capable of intellectual thought and artistic production on par with that of the European. 

The European standard of art followed the former slave author, forcing him to acquire the speech and manner--and writing style of the day. This early practice evidenced a kind of mimicry for which the African American writer has often been credited. However, this was not simply a means of copycatting: the author of the slave narrative acquired the manners and style of the European in order to encode messages of resistance and self-assertion. Writing for the slave author meant empowering the self: "Writing the self into existence" and creating a document that would testify to his experience and therefore give it added relevance. 

More than that, the slave narrative would evolve from biography into a tool of abolition and protest. Over the next decades leading into the twentieth century, African American Literature would often hearken to the strategies of the early narratives and their modes of creating subtle but forceful protest, African American literature would then adopt specific and recognizable characteristics that made it unique from that of other cultures.