O Black and Unknown Bards

Sonnet

 The difficulty experienced in attaining absolute correctness is greater than might be supposed by those who have never tried the experiment, and we are far from claiming that we have made no mistakes.

More than thirty years ago those plantation songs made their appearance which were so extraordinarily popular for a while; and if "Coal-black Rose," "Zip Coon" and "Ole Virginny nebber tire" have been succeeded by spurious imitations,

God rules the Universe. I was a feeble instrument in His hands, and through me and the enslaved millions of my race, one of the problems was solved that belongs to the great problem of human destiny;

If I have portrayed the dark side of slavery, I also have painted the bright side.

my grandmother had derived from Anglo-Saxon ancestor

On condition of paying his mistress two hundred dollars a year, and supporting himself, he was allowed to work at his trade, and manage his own affairs.

By Ailcey; she give me the stone, an' I give it to Andy, an' we both sent oneapiece back. Didn't you git 'em?

 Mrs. Franks was herself a handsome lady of some thirty-five summers, butten years less in appearance,

“:hat you consider true, may be false—that is, it might be true to you, andfalse to us,” continued he

 As to my own treatment while I lived on Colonel Lloyd's plantation, it was very similar to that of the other slave children. I was not old enough to work in the field, and there being little else than field work to do, I had a great deal of leisure time. The most I had to do was to drive up the cows at evening, keep the fowls out of the garden, keep the front yard clean, and run of errands for my old master's daughter, Mrs. Lucretia Auld

His words were in perfect keeping with his looks, and his looks were in perfect keeping with his words.

"It is better that a dozen slaves suffer under the lash, than that the overseer should be convicted, in the presence of the slaves, of having been at fault."

he young man's name was Ned Roberts, generally called Lloyd's Ned.

She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering.

My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me.

t is to thee, my native land. From whence has issut·d nrnnv a band To tear the black man from his soil. And forn• him here to ddw and toil~ Chained on your blooJ-bemoistened so

in Ct>ntral .·\mt:'rica as an cmi~ration agent nrn,missioneJ to s<·arch for lilt•!) Sl·ttlc:'nwnt locales for Afrit-an Amerirnns dise1ll.:hantt:<l with tht' L1niH•d St,1tes.

Whitfield's ach~arer of black America's a et~pl e earned him lasting recog-c I h ievement w· f' n is avery h' ie t e could have attained than b as o ten measured m poets. Yet even in is Jass was perhaps the fi d y what he actu· II d' ore by what he and others h k irst to eel W a y id , s ac led to an uninspiring . b are hitneld a d' h accomplish as a poet. Doug· a,nd con~umed hjs time whii: r -

I can't read, but I can hear. I have heard the bible and have_ learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up a

Truth worked with Olive Gilbert, a sympathetic white woman, to write and publish the Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a contribution to both the slave narrative and female spiritual autobiography traditions of African American literature. In 1875 with the aid of a white friend, Frances Titus, Truth reprinted her Narrative,

Two ye_ars later she sued successfully for the return of her son Peter from enslavement 1n Alab~ma.

shut out from your minds. The oppressors themselves have become involved in the ruin. They have become weak, sensual, and rapa-cious—they have cursed you—they have cursed themselves—they have cursed the earth which they have trod

. The first dealings they had with men calling themselves Christians, exhibited to them the worst features of corrupt. and sordid hearts: and convinced them that no cruelty is too great, no villainy and no robbery too abhorrent for even enlight-ened men to perform,

Mankind are becoming wiser, and better—the oppressor’s power is fading, and you, every day, are becoming better informed, and more numerous

They think because they hold us in their infernal chains of slavery, that we wish to be white, or of their color--but they are dreadfully deceived--we wish to be just as it pleased our Creator to have made us, and no avaricious and unmerciful wretches, have any business to make slaves of, or hold us in slavery. How would they like for us to make slaves of, and hold them in cruel slavery, and murder them as they do us?--

hereon, and having paid for the whole, he moved his family into it, where he was suffered to remain but nine months, when he was cheated out of his property by a white man, and driven out of door! And is not this the case generally? Can a man of colour buy a piece of land and keep it peaceably? Will not some white man try to get it from him, even if it is in a mud hole?

They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a cypher--

"'Is she guaranteed?' asked !\lfred, after a moment of reflection. "'As pure as the morning ck·v,,/ the auctioneer responded. But, for that matter, you yourself can. . , / '"No no, there's no need~· said Alfred, interrupting him. 'I trust you.' "'I've never sold a single piece of bad merchandise,'

at a negro's as vile as a dog; society rejects him; men detest him; the laws curse him ....

Sejour's first play, a verse drama set in fifteenth-century Spain, was accepted for production by the French national theater. Du

This book had the heft of a de-nominational book, and it was clearly designed to assert the church’s le-gitimacy among white peers,

penchant for working po-etry and hymnody into his preaching,19 and the ambiguity of the nation leaves the reader to identify the “us” that the poem invokes: is it African-descent Christians? Americans? Methodists? This flexibility of reference and community may have helped to fuel the text’s travels

Several scholars have identified this book as among the first to include a type of folk hymn known as “re-vival songs” or “gospel hymns.”

reatly satisfied with your Reasons respecting the Negroes, and think highly reasonable what you offer in Vindication of their natural Rights: Those that invade them cannot be insensible that the divine Light is chasing away the thick Darkness which broods over the Land of Africa;

Anon Britannia droops the pensive head, While round increase the rising hills of dead.

While Homer paints, lo! circumfus'd in air, Celestial Gods in mortal forms appear;

She had kept them long concealed from the knowledge of the enemy,

nd were determined to live free men, or expire in their attemptsfor liberty and independence.

bloody contest, in St. Domingo, between the white man, who flourished the child of sensuality, rioting on the miseries of his slaves; had the sons of Africa, who, provoked to madness, and armed themselves against French barbarity;

Eunice Allen see the Indians coming, And hopes to save herself by running, And had not her petticoats stopped her,

Simeon Amsden they found dead, Not many rods distant from his head.

Eteazer Hawks

that the invaders had laid waste their country, and were coming speedily to destroy them in my father's territories. This affrighted them, and therefore they immediately pushed off to the southward, into the unknown countries there, and were never more heard of.         Two days after their retreat, the report turned out to be but too true

before a message was brought by an inhabitant of the place where I lived the preceding year to my father, that that place had been invaded by a numerous army, from a nation not far distant, furnished with musical instruments, and all kinds of arms then in use; that they were instigated by some white nation who equipped and sent them to subdue and possess the country;

et so kind was our Almighty protector, that none of them were ever permitted to hurt or molest us.

We have fire-arms, bows and arrows, broad two-edged Page 25 swords and javelins: we have shields also which cover a man from head to foot. All are taught the use of these weapons; even our women are warriors, and march boldly out to fight along with the men.

but on this it is an indispensable ceremony. After washing, libation is made, by pouring out a Page 14 small portion of the food, in a certain place, for the spirits of departed relations, which the natives suppose to preside over their conduct, and guard them from evil. They are totally unacquainted with strong or spirituous liquours; and their principal beverage is palm wine

a woman was convicted before the judges of adultery, and delivered over, as the custom was, to her husband to be punished. Accordingly he determined to put her to death: but it being found, just before her execution, that she had an infant at her breast; and no woman being prevailed on to perform Page 8 the part of a nurse, she was spared on account of the child.

andfindingthatifIdiddestroymyselfIcouldnotcomewhereGodwas,

wewillhavetheoldthingoveragain,"andsowekneeleddownasecondtime,andafterhehadprayedearnestlywegotup,andhesaidagain,"Howdoyoudonow;"

Lordwithmetobepublished,inhopestheymaybeusefultoothers,toencouragethefearful,toconfirmthewavering,andtorefreshtheheartsoftruebelievers

They kept me with them about five Weeks, during which Time they us'd me pretty well, and gave me boil'd Corn, which was what they often eat themselves.

to be Indians of which there were Sixty; being now so near them we could not possibly make our Escape; they soon came up with and boarded us, took away all our Arms[,] Ammunition, and Provision.

Uneasiness, the Captain, a Passenger, and one Hand tarry'd on board,