The early 19th century in America was a time when the country was divided on the issue of slavery. As we look at the writing, Appeal by David Walker (1785 - 1830), we see the emotional steam engine firing within this black, free abolitionist, and view slavery from the side of the educated oppressed. David Walker conveyed his ideas by making charges against white Americans, which presents a potent argument at this time in the nations history. Walker also made charges specifically against Thomas Jefferson refuting ideas expressed by Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia.
David Walker's sediments on white Americans in his writing Appeal were extreme. He considered white Americans to be an unjust, blood- thirsty people that are unmerciful -true barbarians. David Walker believed that white Americans treat their African slaves worse than any other people have ever been treated. Some of his examples of this oppression were: A black man's home could have been feasibly taken by a white man at any time, and no political office was held by a black man at the time -not even the most menial. He exemplified the backwardness of the white man's concept of barbarism by pointing out that the white American is the true barbarian. His example was directed at a South Carolina newspaper that reported the Turks as Barbaric while, in the same issue, reporting that eight blacks are for sale, and promoting the brutal shipping of Africans. .
There existed an irony of religious ideals that David Walker perceived among the whites. He challenged the notion that Christianity called for peace yet caused much war and degradation; He argued that Spanish conquest brought about death and degradation in the name of God. David Walker saw God as a just God, as did the white Christians of America, though he found another irony in Christian perception of justice: the granting of peace to the tyrants (white oppressors and rulers) and wretchedness to the oppressed (black slaves).