The Collected Works of Jupiter Hammon


Book Description

"This text will become the definitive collection of Hammon's work--not only because of the archival finds that Cedrick May features but also because of his careful and attentive reconstruction of Hammon's historical, political, social, and religious contexts."--Katy Chiles, author of Transformable Race: Surprising Metamorphoses in the Literature of Early America "This volume, which reflects those discoveries about the Hammon's life and work that have taken place since Ransom's earlier collection, will enable scholars, instructors, students, and other interested readers ready to access the most up-to-date assessment and presentation of this pioneering African American author's body of work."--Ajuan Mance, editor of Before Harlem: An Anthology of African American Literature from the Long Nineteenth Century Editor Cedrick May's The Collected Works of Jupiter Hammon offers a complete look at the literary achievements of one of the founders of African American literature: Jupiter Hammon (1711-1806?), the first Black writer to be published in what became the United States of America. With this collection--the most comprehensive volume on Hammon's works to date--May carefully reconstructs the historical, political, social, and religious contexts that shaped Hammon's essays and poems throughout the late eighteenth century. This fresh presentation and insightful reevaluation sets down a new rubric for how Hammon, an enslaved person from New York, can be studied and appreciated among literary scholars and readers alike.




America's First Negro Poet


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To Make a Poet Black


Book Description

This classic study of American Black poetry, first published in 1939 and long out of print, is the work of perhaps the pre-eminent figure in Black Studies of the past two generations. A major contribution to the history of Black thought in America, it ranges widely, beginning in the late eighteenth century with Jupiter Hammon, the first American Black writer, and ending in the 1930s with Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes.




Genius in Bondage


Book Description

Until fairly recently, critical studies and anthologies of African American literature generally began with the 1830s and 1840s. Yet there was an active and lively transatlantic black literary tradition as early as the 1760s. Genius in Bondage situates this literature in its own historical terms, rather than treating it as a sort of prologue to later African American writings. The contributors address the shifting meanings of race and gender during this period, explore how black identity was cultivated within a capitalist economy, discuss the impact of Christian religion and the Enlightenment on definitions of freedom and liberty, and identify ways in which black literature both engaged with and rebelled against Anglo-American culture.




Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Jupiter Hammon (Illustrated)


Book Description

The first published African American poet, Jupiter Hammon was born into slavery in 1711 on Long Island, New York. Over the years he became a well-respected preacher and clerk-bookkeeper, as his poems were circulated widely. His poetry is composed in hymn stanzas and is noted for its rhythmic and passionate expression. In later years, attending the 1786 inaugural meeting of the African Society in New York, he delivered ‘An Address to Negros in the State of New-York’ — his most influential work. Only in more recent times have critics started to recognise Hammon’s important contribution to the development of black American literature. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature’s finest poets, with superior formatting. For the first time in digital publishing, this volume presents Hammon’s complete works, with related illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Hammon’s life and works * Concise introduction to Hammon’s life and poetry * Rare recently discovered poems * Images of how the poetry was first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the poems * Includes Hammon’s complete prose — with rare essays digitised here for the first time * A brief biography — discover Jupiter Hammon’s world * Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres CONTENTS: The Life and Poetry of Jupiter Hammon Brief Introduction: Jupiter Hammon An Evening Thought (1760) Dear Hutchinson is Dead and Gone (1770) An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley (1778) A Poem for Children with Thoughts on Death (1782) A Dialogue, Entitled, the Kind Master and the Dutiful Servant (1783) An Essay on Slavery (1786) The Prose A Winter Piece (1782) An Evening’s Improvement (1783) An Address to the Negroes in the State of New-York (1786) The Biography The Negro’s Heritage of Song (1923) by Robert Thomas Kerlin




Being Brought from Africa to America - The Best of Phillis Wheatley


Book Description

Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753–1784) was an American freed slave and poet who wrote the first book of poetry by an African-American. Sold into a slavery in West Africa at the age of around seven, she was taken to North America where she served the Wheatley family of Boston. Phillis was tutored in reading and writing by Mary, the Wheatleys' 18-year-old daughter, and was reading Latin and Greek classics from the age of twelve. Encouraged by the progressive Wheatleys who recognised her incredible literary talent, she wrote "To the University of Cambridge” when she was 14 and by 20 had found patronage in the form of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon. Her works garnered acclaim in both England and the colonies and she became the first African American to make a living as a poet. This volume contains a collection of Wheatley's best poetry, including the titular poem “Being Brought from Africa to America”. Contents include: “Phillis Wheatley”, “Phillis Wheatley by Benjamin Brawley”, “To Maecenas”, “On Virtue”, “To the University of Cambridge”, “To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty”, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”, “On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Sewell”, “On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield”, etc. Ragged Hand is proudly publishing this brand new collection of classic poetry with a specially-commissioned biography of the author.




Evangelism and Resistance in the Black Atlantic, 1760-1835


Book Description

This study focuses on the role of early African American Christianity in the formation of American egalitarian religion and politics. It also provides a new context for understanding how black Christianity and evangelism developed, spread, and interacted with transatlantic religious cultures of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Cedrick May looks at the work of a group of pivotal African American writers who helped set the stage for the popularization of African American evangelical texts and the introduction of black intellectualism into American political culture: Jupiter Hammon, Phillis Wheatley, John Marrant, Prince Hall, Richard Allen, and Maria Stewart. Religion gave these writers agency and credibility, says May, and they appropriated the language of Christianity to establish a common ground on which to speak about social and political rights. In the process, these writers spread the principles that enabled slaves and free blacks to form communities, a fundamental step in resisting oppression. Moreover, says May, this institution building was overtly political, leading to a liberal shift in mainstream Christianity and secular politics as black churches and the organizations they launched became central to local communities and increasingly influenced public welfare and policy. This important new study restores a sense of the complex challenges faced by early black intellectuals as they sought a path to freedom through Christianity.




Voices Beyond Bondage


Book Description

Slaves in chains, toiling on master’s plantation. Beatings, bloodied whips. This is what many of us envision when we think of 19th century African Americans; source materials penned by those who suffered in bondage validate this picture. Yet slavery was not the only identity of 19th century African Americans. Whether they were freeborn, self-liberated, or born in the years after the Emancipation, African Americans had a rich cultural heritage all their own, a heritage largely subsumed in popular history and collective memory by the atrocity of slavery. The early 19th century birthed the nation’s first black-owned periodicals, the first media spaces to provide primary outlets for the empowerment of African American voices. For many, poetry became this empowerment. Almost every black-owned periodical featured an open call for poetry, and African Americans, both free and enslaved, responded by submitting droves of poems for publication. Yet until now, these poems -- and an entire literary movement -- have been lost to modern readers. The poems in Voices Beyond Bondage address the horrific and the mundane, the humorous and the ordinary and the extraordinary. Authors wrote about slavery, but also about love, morality, politics, perseverance, nature, and God. These poems evidence authors who were passionate, dedicated, vocal, and above all resolute in a bravery which was both weapon and shield against a world of prejudice and inequity. These authors wrote to be heard; more than 150 years later it is at last time for us to listen.




Early Negro Writing, 1760-1837


Book Description

In Early Negro Writing, first published in 1971, Dorothy Porter presents a rare and indispensable collection of writings of literary, social, and historical importance. Most of the writings contained in this collection are no longer in print. In some cases, only one or two original copies are known to exist. Early Negro Writing is rich with narratives, poems, essays, and public addresses by many of Americas's early Black literary pioneers and champions of racial equality. Represented in this work are poems by Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley and a spiritual song by Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal church. The essays in this collection document the fact that from the earliest days of this country, Black Americans have voiced their concerns on the subject of freedom, slavery, politics, morals, religion, education, emigration, and other issues. Confronted by an often hostile social environment Blacks learned quickly the value of mutual aid and fraternal organizations. Addresses by Masonic organizer and abolitionist Prince Hall and others highlight the importance of these early self-help efforts.