Martin Delany - Writings

Writings

Delany's unfinished novel Blake: or, the Huts of America advocated black activism and rebellion. In it Delany reworked several of Stephen Foster's sentimental "plantation songs". Thus he reappropriated material for his own purposes, to express black resistance and independence. Songs had been used in minstrel shows, in part to show slave contentment or lack of resistance to slavery. For example, Foster's "Old Uncle Ned" mourned the passing of a slave:

Den lay down de shubble and de hoe

Hang up de fiddle and de bow:

No more hard work for poor old Ned

He's gone whar de good darkeys go.

Delany turned this into a song of rebellion about the death of a master:

Hang up the shovel and thee hoe-o-o-o!

I don't care whether I work or no!

Old master's gone to the slaveholders' rest —

He's gone where they all ought to go!

While Part One was publlished in serial form, scholars do not know if he ever completed the novel or published the entire thing. Sections found were edited and published in the 20th century.