The Rhetorical Situation of Henry Bibb (Entry Seven)

The narrative of Henry Bibb utilizes rhetorical situations in which the audience is able to sympathize with the characters in order to promote his anti slavery argument. Bib makes use of rhetorical strategies such as personal experience and anecdotal evidence as a means to illustrate the humanity of blacks. Touching on the subject of family, Bibb emphasizes to white Christians in the North that, through the hypocrisy of “Christian” slave holders, marriage and piety are often destroyed. In his narrative, Bibb exemplifies his struggle for freedom by framing his narrative as a journey motif in which his “personal experience was metaphorically paralleled by the struggle for freedom” (Lowance).

Bibb uses his devotion to the Christian faith as a rhetorical strategy to further his anti-slavery argument. Many slaves often gathered to hold informal religious meetings. Bibb describes one of these, stating “We had a very good meeting, although our exercises were not conducted in accordance with an enlightened Christianity; for we had no Bible – no intelligent leader – but a conscience, prompted by our own reason, constrained us to worship God the Creator of all things” (Bibb 508). In accounting for his belief in God and Christianity, Bibb presents himself as a loyal Christian which could potentially appeal to white, Christian readers, who also practiced. Bibb displays the potential for blacks, like white people, to be enlightened Christians.

Bibb largely stresses the institutions of marriage and the family to reveal the humanity of blacks, both of which were extremely significant throughout his narrative. He argued that “Licentious white men can, and do, enter at night or day the lodging places of slaves; break up the bonds of affection in families; destroy all their domestic and social union for life…” (Bibb 455). Bibb stresses these institutions not only because of the role they had in his life, but the role they had within American society during the cultural moment in which the narrative was received.

White slaveholders often regarded blacks as brutes, suggesting their incapacity for thought, feeling and emotion. By expressing his love for his wife and daughter, Bibb forces the predominately white audience to identify with his love for his family. His reasoning for not escaping a life of slavery was solely due to this adoration, shown as he admits “I know that I should have broke away had it not been for the sake of my wife and child who was with me” (Bibb 495). Another rhetorical strategy he presents is reasoning with the audience by justifying why he acted as he did in escaping from his masters. In one instance Bibb steals a horse so he can escape. He then justifies this by getting whites to identify with him, inviting them to put themselves in his position when he states “But I ask, if a white man had been captured…and carried away from his family for life into slavery, and could see a chance to escape and get back to his family…would it be a crime for the poor fugitive, whose life, liberty, and future happiness were all at stake, to mount any man’s horse by the way side, and ride him without asking any questions, to effect his escape? Or who would not do the same thing to rescue a wife, child, father, or mother?...Therefore from this act I have done nothing more than any other reasonable person would have done under the same circumstances” (Bibb 535). With that, Bibb causes whites to realize, had they been torn away from their families, they would’ve been forced to act in the same way Bibb and other slaves did.

Works Cited

Bibbs, Henry. Narrative of The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave. Slave Narratives 1789. Eds. William Andrews and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Library of America 2000; pgs. 427-566.

Lowance, Mason. "Slave Narratives." Oxford African American Studies Center. Oxford University Press, 2006-2009. Web. 5 Dec. 2009.
http://www.oxfordaasc.com/article/opr/t0003/e0399?hi=1&highlight=1&from=quick&pos=2#match