Productions of Maria Stewart

In many ways this paragraph is echoed with other activist writing, namely the famous I Have a Dream speech by MLK. The principles of a man’s soul are the characteristics by which Stewart emphasizes blacks should be judged, much like King’s sentiment signifying the importance of the content of their character.

http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

It’s fascinating that many religions, specifically faiths within Christianity find this so important. Indeed, it marks a momentous step in a person’s faith and spiritual relationship. It is assuredly a time not only of giving yourself over to God but also requesting a mentoring and adoption by your now brothers and sisters in Christ.

http://www.twoagespilgrims.com/doctrine/?p=3375

“You have acknowledged all the nations of the earth, except Hayti….” The 18^th and early 19^th centuries were a time of revolution throughout the Western world. Stewart, however, reveals the terrible bias of the U.S. toward an independent Haiti that acquired it’s sovereignty through revolution, also. Since it was a postcolonial nation of blacks and former slaves, the U.S. did not even grant formal recognition to the Haitian government until 1862.

Reading this paragraph, I think it would be very interesting to do a study of children and discipline in the Bible, Torah, and Koran. Maybe even link a survey of those texts to children and discipline through the ages as seen in literature such as this and in other works….

Maria Stewart’s pronouncements, beginning in this paragraph, begin to take on the same thematic style and structure of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel. Compare her statements to Ezekiel’s powerful admonitions to the Jewish people during the Babylonian invasion of Judah and the destruction of Jeruselem in the late 6^th century BCE. Ezekiel, like other prophets of the period, was trying to explain how God’s chosen people could be so oppressed and diminished by a pagan nation. Like Ezekiel, Maria Stewart assumes the stature of prophet to examine the suffering of African Americans in the antebellum U.S., using many of the same tropes as the Jewish prophets.

“… but let us promote ourselves and improve our own talents.” This passage is a theme in American black nationalist ideology that first appeared in David Walker’s Appeal To The Coloured Citizens Of The World. Maria Stewart, being Walker’s protégé, continued promoting the idea after her mentor’s death.

“… but such knowledge as God has Given to me… .” This is an important phrase that is repeated in numerous variations throughout Maria Stewart’s body of works. She uses the phrase to indicate a special knowledge handed to her directly and literally from God, much in the same way that the prophets of the Old Testament professed a special knowledge of the future of the Hebrew people during times of existential crisis.

Here Stewart establishes the equality of all people not only under the law, but according to Scripture. In this passage, as elsewhere throughout her writing, she seamlessly weaves moral, legal. And religious arguments for civil rights.