A Call to Political and Social Activism: The Jeremiadic Discourse of Maria Miller Stewart, 1831-1833

Abstract

This essay identifies the rhetorical strategies of Maria Miller Stewart’s Boston anti-slavery discourse as jeremiads that connected her religious, moral, political and social lamentations of the American democratic system and called her audiences to aid in the desensitizing of slavery and America prejudice. When she attempted to establish a common ground, the aim of Stewart’s jeremiads was to make her audiences conscious of the numerous social and political grievances within the African-American community. Stewart’s jeremiadic discourse called for the deterioration of American racism and sexism and provided an agency that constituted a form of resistance.