Early African American Poetry Essay
The Africans that were brought to the United States of America as slaves were faced first with the ordeal of surviving the middle passage – the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean – and then surviving within the institution of slavery. As slaves, they were denied the right to retain their languages and religions. Instead, they were forced to learn a new language, English, and a new form of religion, Christianity. The fact that there is any evidence of African-American literature written before 1865, when the Civil War ended, is remarkable. In many areas it was against the law to educate a slave. Thus, the majority of slaves were illiterate. Some slaves tricked their owners’ children into teaching them to read and write. A few slaves were lucky:
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Early African American poetry, such as that of Phyllis Wheatley and Jupiter Hammon (The earliest published black American writer, Jupiter Hammon wrote his most popular piece, An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York, at age seventy-six, after being freed by the family he served for three generations. In the Address, Hammon preaches those slaves are capable of accepting Christ, and that those who do not are morally enslaved by their master. By accepting Christ, slave guarantee themselves freedom after death, the only freedom Hammon believed was imminently possible. Drawing heavily on biblical theology, Hammon encouraged black to have high moral standards precisely because their enslavement on earth had already secured their place in heaven, where the color veil would be lifted. He also advocated a plan of gradual emancipation as a compromise to ending slavery immediately, and thought a pension should be established by slave owners for slave emancipated after they were no longer able to work. However, Hammon was criticized for his insistence that older slaves should be cared for by their masters if they were incapable of caring for themselves. Hammon's essay was published by the New York Quakers twice during his lifetime, and once after his death by members of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery), reflects the strong religious influences of
Early African American poetry, such as that of Phyllis Wheatley and Jupiter Hammon (The earliest published black American writer, Jupiter Hammon wrote his most popular piece, An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York, at age seventy-six, after being freed by the family he served for three generations. In the Address, Hammon preaches those slaves are capable of accepting Christ, and that those who do not are morally enslaved by their master. By accepting Christ, slave guarantee themselves freedom after death, the only freedom Hammon believed was imminently possible. Drawing heavily on biblical theology, Hammon encouraged black to have high moral standards precisely because their enslavement on earth had already secured their place in heaven, where the color veil would be lifted. He also advocated a plan of gradual emancipation as a compromise to ending slavery immediately, and thought a pension should be established by slave owners for slave emancipated after they were no longer able to work. However, Hammon was criticized for his insistence that older slaves should be cared for by their masters if they were incapable of caring for themselves. Hammon's essay was published by the New York Quakers twice during his lifetime, and once after his death by members of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery), reflects the strong religious influences of