From the Underground Railroad to the Promised Land: The American Negro Search for Spiritual Geography

Abstract

By way of an introduction, I will begin with three explanatory notes: 1. The subject of this paper is a part of a more general work that deals with various aspects of American Orientalism on which I have been working for over twenty years. The work, parts of which have already been published, is based on the premise that very early in the history of the colonization of North America seeds of Orientalism were sown in the attitude of the immigrants to the concept of the Land of Promise.To give one illustration only, one of the Puritan leaders, John Cotton, wished his fellow Englishmen God's speed on their journey to the New World in an essay he called "God's Promise to His Plantation." Cotton quoted from Scripture: "Moreover I will appoint a place for mv people IsraeL and I will plant them, that they y dwell in a place of their own, and move no ore (2 Sa . 7. 10).1 Early immigr nts sa\v an nalogy between their journey to the New World and the biblical trip of the Israelites from Egypt to the Land of Canaan. The theme has been present in the writings and behavior of Americans down the centuries. I have documented this subject '-elsewhere. 2 7 2. The Underground Railroad is the name that was given to a secret network of agents and safe houses used in mid-nineteenth century by abolitionists to smuggle Negroes to the North or to Canada. .,, 3. The terms 'Negro', 'Blacks', 'African-Americans' are used to refer to the African-American community in the U. S. I will try to be politically correct by using these terms each its in the historical context. .