Distribution of The Appeal
Three editions of Walker's pamphlet were published within a year. Of the first edition, which was published in fall of 1829, only seven copies are known to survive. Walker distributed his pamphlet through various black communication networks along the Atlantic coast, which included free and enslaved black civil rights activists, laborers, black church and revivalist networks, contacts with free black benevolent societies, and maroon communities.
Southern officials tried desperately to prevent the Appeal from reaching its residents. Blacks in Charleston and New Orleans were arrested for distributing the pamphlet while authorities in Savannah, Georgia instituted a ban on the disembarkation of black seamen. Various southern governmental bodies, meanwhile, labeled the Appeal seditious and imposed harsh penalties on those who circulated it. Despite such efforts, Walker's pamphlet was everywhere by early 1830. Having failed to contain the Appeal, southern officials castigated both the pamphlet and its author. Newspapers like the Richmond Enquirer railed against what it called Walker’s “monstrous slander” of the region. Outrage over the Appeal even led Georgia to announce an award of $10,000 to anyone who could hand over Walker alive, and $1,000 to anyone who would murder him.
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“There is great work for you to do… You have to prove to the Americans and the world that we are MEN, and not brutes, as we have been represented, and by millions treated. Remember, to let the aim of your labours among your brethren, and particularly the youths, be the dissemination of education and religion.”
— Walker, The Appeal, 32.
Read more about this topic: David Walker (abolitionist)
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