A Selection of BIPOC Writers of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Authors, Texts, Contexts, and Teaching Resources

(Open Access Online Resources in English and English Translation):

● Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780, Atlantic Ocean en route from Guinea)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IgnatiusSancho.jpg)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N1YUqufjwI

○ Letters, Volume I: https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/sancho1/sancho1.html

○ Letters, Volume II: https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/sancho2/sancho2.html

○ Context: https://www.bl.uk/people/ignatius-sancho

○ Teaching Resources: https://www.bl.uk/teaching-resources/restoration-ignatius-sancho-letters-of-the-late-ignatius

● Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745-1797, Eboe region, Africa)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olaudah_Equiano_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_15399.png)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQaF4BNY9LA

○ The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15399

○ Context: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-life-of-olaudah-equinao

○ Teaching Resources: https://americainclass.org/seminars/teaching-the-slave-narrative-the-life-of-olaudah-equiano/

● Phillis Wheatley Peters (1753-1784, Senegal/Gambia)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phillis_Wheatley_frontispiece.jpg)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEzrary7sOY

○ Poems: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/409

○ Context: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-wheatley

○ Teaching Resources: http://l-adam-mekler.com/wheatleytr.htm

● Ottobah Cugoano (c. 1757-c. 1791, Agimaque (Ajumako), Gold Coast/Ghana)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_and_Maria_Cosway,_and_Ottobah_Cugoano_1784_(cropped)_(cropped).jpg)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA8jSZNnzZE

○ Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/K046227.0001.001/1:5?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

○ Context: https://www.k-saa.org/blog//the-name-game-ottobah-cugoano-and-the-title-of-christian?rq=Cugoano

● Nguyen Du (1765-1820, Vietnam)

○ Tale of Kieu: https://truyenkieuinenglish.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/the-tale-of-kieu/

○ Context and Teaching Resources: https://www.deanza.edu/faculty/swenssonjohn/kieu/index.html

● Mary Prince (c. 1788-1833, Bermuda)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_prince_first_edition_frontpage.jpg)

Podcast, BBC Sounds, Britain’s Black Past: “Mary Prince”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b07x5vrs

○ The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17851

○ Context: https://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/campaignforabolition/sources/witnesses/princeeyewitness/maryprince.html

○ Teaching Resources: https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/ten-minute-book-club/prince-history-of-mary-prince#/

● Ghalib (1797-1869, Mughal Empire)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mirza_Ghalib_photograph.jpg)

YouTube Clip on Ghazals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-xvfQlKUWM

○ Ghazals and context: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ghalib/about/about_project.html

○ Teaching Resources: http://jpellegrino.com/teaching/ghalib-readingaghazal.html

● Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897, North Carolina)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gilbert_Studios_photograph_of_Harriet_Jacobs.jpg)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TuhCzvp-RY

○ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11030

○ Context: https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/jacobs-harriet

○ Teaching Resources: https://www.penguin.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/IncidentsSlaveGirlTG.pdf

● Frederick Douglass (c. 1817-1895, Maryland)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederick_Douglass_(circa_1879).jpg)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsFNYW6EJi4

○ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23

○ Context: https://www.nps.gov/frdo/index.htm

○ Teaching Resources: https://www.prestwickhouse.com/blog/post/2020/02/how-to-teach-narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass

● Charles A. Eastman or Ohiyesa (1858-1939, Santee Sioux)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_eastman_smithsonian_gn_03462a.jpg)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqRWzBnRSEs

○ Books: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57696

○ Context: http://aktalakota.stjo.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8884

○ Teaching Resources:

https://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/late_nineteenth/eastmansioux_ch.html

● Traditional Poetry of Polynesia

(https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/b5135c5f-4699-496b-bf85-98c206720c95/content)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZxxtgPbi30&t=796s

○ Poems, Context, and Teaching Resources:

https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/63554/9780824883881_alttext.pdf

○ Text, Context, and Teaching Resources for “A Red Girl’s Reasoning”:

https://canlitguides.ca/canlit-guides-editorial-team/e-pauline-johnson-tekahionwake/a-red-girls-reasoning-1913-by-e-pauline-johnson-tekahionwake/

● Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941, India)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rabindranath_Tagore.jpg)

YouTube Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z9DGp4wGE0

○ Poetry:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b701126&view=1up&seq=3&skin=2021

○ Short stories:

○ Context: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1913/tagore/biographical/

○ Teaching Resources for “The Conclusion”: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED421376.pdf

Works Cited:

Damrosch, David and David L. Pike, et al., editors. The Longman Anthology of World Literature, Volume 2E: The Nineteenth Century. 2nd ed., Longman, 2009.