Black people fought back against the discourse of race and reason by creating their own genre of literature, which today we call the slave narratives. Again, writing was the key. Enslavers knew this. A person who could write could demand their rights and organize to do so. Writing was seen as such a powerful act that enslaved Black people were prohibited from learning how to as part of South Carolina’s Negro Act of 1740, which had been passed in response to the Stono Rebellion slave uprising of the previous year. Many enslaved people who were freed or who escaped to the North equated freedom
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