“My Fellow-Creatures”? Empathy for Slaves in 19th-Century British Travel Writing about America

Abstract

Abstract The paper investigates descriptions of slavery in early 19th-century British travel writing about America and ponders the question of the presence of empathy in them. It shows that while most passages referring to the slaves’ situation can hardly be called empathetic, and that within the economy of suffering operating in the discussed travelogues the narrators tend to appropriate the pain of the people whom they observe, there is still a possibility of the texts in question evoking the reader’s empathy. This happens on two levels: first, the reader may empathize with the white traveler; second, and more indirectly, he/she may empathize with the black slave. The paper analyzes how such a response is produced within the said travelogues, relying mostly on Suzanne Keen’s work on narrative empathy.