Author-Illustrator Don Tate opens his Crystal Kite Award winning book, The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton Poet with these words: “George loved words. He wanted to learn how to read, but George was enslaved.”
Don Tate tells the story of George Moses Horton born a slave in North Carolina in the late 1700s. As a child, George listened to the words in songs and in sermons and from the Bible. And he listened to the white children on the plantation recite the alphabet, until he too, could recite it. But George could not read. It was forbidden for slaves to learn to read.
George Moses Horton
Then, George found a spelling book and taught himself to read. And George read everything he could. It was poetry he loved to read most. So George began to write poems, memorizing them.
I feel myself in need
Of the inspiring strains of ancient lore,
My heart to lift, my empty mind to feed,
And all the world explore.
When he was seventeen, George became the property of his master’s son and was taken away from his family. On Sundays, George traveled eight miles to the University of North Carolina’s campus to sell the plantations’ vegetables and fruit. He recited his poetry and students there were amazed that he, a slave, had written them.
I know that I am old
And never can recover what is past,
But for the future may some light unfold
And soar from ages blast.
George recited his poems and they were written down by students. He began to sell them for 25 cents and sometimes for clothing.
I feel resolved to try,
My wish to prove, my calling to pursue,
Or mount up from the earth into the sky,
To show what Heaven can do.
A writer, poet, and professor’s wife, Caroline Lee Hentz taught George to write. Now George wrote down the poems he had created and memorized. And through Hentz’s work, George became the first American slave to be published.
My genius from a boy,
Has fluttered like a bird within my heart;
But could not thus confined her powers employ,
Impatient to depart.
George worked out an arrangement with his master, paying him with the money he earned writing and working small jobs. This allowed George to stay at the University and work as a full-time writer. But George was still owned by his master.
She like a restless bird,
Would spread her wing, her power to be unfurl’d,
And let her songs be loudly heard,
And dart from world to world. — George Moses Horton, Myself
George continued to write, and in 1829 published a book of poetry, The Hope Of Liberty. George became the first Southern African-American to publish a book. But George could not gain his freedom with the book’s earnings. His master would not allow it. And as the abolitionist movement grew, so did repression in the South. The Hope of Liberty contained anti-slavery material and George knew that now under North Carolina law he could be severely punished if he continued to write against slavery.
The Poetical Works of George M. Horton about “life, love, death, and friendship” was published in 1845. During the years of the American Civil War, George had to return to work on his master’s farm. At the end of the war, as a free man, he left the farm and traveled with the 9th Michigan Cavalry Volunteers. As they traveled through North Carolina, George wrote his third poetry collection, Naked Genius, published in 1865.
George lived in Philadelphia until his death in about 1883. The poetry of George Moses Horton is in the public domain and available online.
