"In Becoming African in America, James Sidbury reveals how an African identity emerged in the late eighteenth-century Atlantic world, tracing the development of "African" from a degrading term connoting savage people to a word that was a source of pride and unity for the diverse victims of the Atlantic slave trade." "Sidbury examines the work of black writers - such as Ignatius Sancho in England and Phillis Wheatley in America - who created a narrative of African identity that took its meaning from the diaspora, a narrative that began with enslavement and the experience of the Middle Passage, allowing people of various ethnic backgrounds to become "African" by virtue of sharing the oppression of slavery."--Jacket.

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African americans, history, to 1863African americans, race identityBlack nationalismAmerican literature, african american authors, history and criticismEnglish literature, history and criticismAntislavery movementsUnited states, emigration and immigrationAfrica, emigration and immigrationUnited states, race relationsAfrican Americans

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