Oceanic Barriers: The British–American Divide among Revolutionary Black Atlantic Writers

As a distinct generation, the first authors of the British black Atlantic – writers of African descent writing in English in the last half of the eighteenth century – bridged differing worlds. The authors shared common experiences, with most having suffered in the slave trade and having celebrated evangelical religious conversions. While scholars have tended to focus on the transoceanic connections of these authors, the political schism between Britain and the United States in the 1780s divided those authors who lived in what became the United States and those who remained within the British Empire. This article explores that division, first by separating the authors into two groups, those labelled American for remaining in the United States, and those called British for residing in the British Isles or imperial possessions at their lives' end. Second, the article explores the different experiences of each group, and the themes or approaches both groups took in their works. Black American writers generally de‐emphasised political issues, forged local patronage connections, and offered a personal piety that minimised the issue of slavery. Black British writers, by contrast, would stress their African or international identity, embraced a piety that was more socially active, and focused more on issues of political rights and antislavery. The contrasts reflect different life experiences of the two groups, in part because they adapted to being governed under different polities. The larger global context of the American Revolution helps account for differences in narrative and experience among this literary generation.