Encountering the Viper: Edward Bliss Emerson and Slavery

The journal of Edward Bliss Emerson often mentions topics that piqued his curiosity because they were unusual or puzzling. Few subjects were as foreign to him as slavery. Writing in 1831-32, Emerson provides us a series of aural and visual vignettes rather than a coherent commentary on slavery as a way of life. Focusing on the everyday aspects of the institution instead of the politics and economics behind it, Emerson nevertheless suggests the different lenses through which slavery was viewed by a New England intellectual and others.