Slaves in Algiers.
“In the first place, I wish for liberty.”
Rowson, Susanna Haswell. Slaves in Algiers; or, a Struggle for Freedom. [in] Select Plays. Philadelphia: Mathew Carey, 1796.
8vo; full calf; faint foxing; leather distressed; scuffed.
First edition thus, using the sheets and title leaf of the 1794 Philadelphia edition. BAL 1700. As noted by BAL: “Sheets of this play were apparently intended to be reissued in 1796 by Mathew Carey of Philadelphia as part of a nonce collection with a general title-page: Select Plays.” While the general title-page survives at the American Antiquarian Society, this is the only known copy of the collection.
During the course of Slaves in Algiers, a play about a group of American and British women held captive by Mediterranean pirates, a comparison is made between slavery and wifehood, stereotypes about feminine weakness are challenged, and female characters call for equality in bold and explicit terms. “Woman was never formed to be the abject slave of man. Nature made us equal with them, and gave us the power to render ourselves superior,” asserts Fetnah, one of several female protagonists, in the opening scene. Asked what it is she wants, Fetnah replies, “In the first place, I wish for liberty” (I.i). Written in the aftermath of the American Revolution, when many women were disillusioned to discover that the espoused ideals of freedom and equality did not apply to them, the play contrasts the ideal of America, “that land where virtue in either sex is the only mark of superiority,” (I.i) with the reality that the audience knew it to be. Arguing for women’s inclusion in the young democracy as citizens with full rights, the play also presents a model of education based on the mentoring of younger women by older women— a method that, in the following century, would be advocated by the Women’s Movement as a crucial component of women’s empowerment.
A clarion call for women’s equality in the early years of the Republic and a condemnation of the existing institution of marriage, in an edition of which this is the only known copy.
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Susanna Haswell Rowson (ca. 1762 – 1824) is best known as the author of the novel Charlotte Temple, the first American best seller, which to date has been through more than two hundred editions. Born in England, she moved to America when her father was appointed a tax collector in the colonies. As a young girl she circulated among educated Boston society, but was forced with her father to return to England following the Revolution. When some years later she moved back to America, it was as an accomplished actress, playwright, and novelist. In 1797 she founded the Young Ladies’ Academy outside of Boston, a school known for its progressive and challenging curricula.
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