Experience is the Key
From 1700-1900, African-American writers had to be discreet in their wording. Even though they were slave writers, each one had something special that stood them apart from each other. One thing that personally stood out to me was the writers that wrote about their experiences as slaves. Without the first-hand accounts of writers such as Frederick Douglass and Olaudah Equiano, no one would really know how to establish the first African American writers, nor knew about slave life and the fight for freedom.

1787 – The U.S. Constitution was ratified to classify one slave as three- fifths of one person for congressional apportionment. Absalom Jones and Richard Allen organized the Philadelphia Free African Society.
(Olaudah Equiano – The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African)

1798 – Georgia was the last state to end the slave trade.
(Venture Smith – A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native of Africa)

1843 – Vermont & Massachusetts defy 1793 Fugitive Slave Act
(Frederick Douglass – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave, Written by Himself)

1847 – Liberia declares independence & becomes first African republic
(William Wells Brown – Narrative of William Wells Brown)

1861 – The American Civil War begins
(Harriet Jacobs – Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl)

1867 – African American men granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C. despite President Johnson's veto
(Nicolas Said – A Native or Bornoo)

1868 – US Congress passes the 14th amendment, which gave blacks equal citizenship & civil rights
(Elizabeth Keckley – Behind the scenes; or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House)
1892 - US black newspaper "Afro-American" begins publishing from Baltimore
(Anna Julia Cooper – A Voice from the South)