The increase of slavery started the Abolitionist debates in the North. Moreover, Andrew Jackson not only supported slavery but also passed the Indian Removal Act (1830). The slave narratives started to be published in the late 1700s and reached the peak of popularity before the outbreak of the Civil War. The writers were describing their living conditions and often attempts at escape, which would, however, not be the total solution, as their families were left behind and the future in the North was not secure. The author writes mainly for white audiences to gain wider sympathy and understanding and also to prove (like other minorities) their social usefulness and adaptability.

Many African Americans felt disappointed by the differences between the slogans of the Revolution promising freedom and equal rights and its insistence on slavery as a legal institution. One of the early opponents of this injustice was Lemuel Haynes (1753–1833), an evangelical minister. His address, ‘Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-Keeping’ (written early in his career but not published until 1983) refers to the Declaration of Independence and proclaims that the “unalienable rights” should apply to all human beings. Similarly to Haynes, Olaudah Equiano (1745–97) was born in Africa as a free man. He was taken to Barbados and later to Virginia where he was enslaved. In 1776 he regained his freedom. He described his life experience in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Valla, the African, Written by Himself (1787). 

Another influential representative of the genre was Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). Douglass (1817–95) was born on a plantation in Maryland. His father was white, presumably his master. Douglass was sent to Baltimore where he learnt to read and write. He escaped to the North where he started to give lectures on slavery and became one of the most prominent anti-abolitionist black leaders. 

The poetic tradition was established by two African American poets: Jupiter Hammon (1711–ca. 1806) and Phillis Wheatley (1753–84). Hammon was born a slave and his collection Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, With Penitential Cries (1760) was the first to be published by African Americans. He wrote one poem to Wheatley: ‘An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly, Ethiopian Poetess, in Boston, who came from Africa at eight years of age and soon became acquainted with the gospel of Jesus Christ’ (1778). Phillis Wheatley published her collection called Poems in 1773 in London.