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Poems on Slavery is a collection of poems by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in support of the United States anti-slavery efforts. With one exception, the collection of poems were written at sea by Longfellow in October 1842. [1] The poems were reprinted as anti-slavery tracts two different times during 1843. [2] [3] Longfellow, very conscious of his public persona, published the poems even though he feared it would hurt him commercially. At the time of publication reviews were mixed, [4] but more recently critics (now less bothered by what was earlier done away with as mere sentimentality) have begun to appreciate the collection again, for its political message and for its rhetorical strategies. [5]
Many factors that helped influence Longfellow to compose Poems on Slavery. As a young man he read Benjamin Lundy's Genius of Universal Emancipation in his father's library. [4] He considered writing a drama on the subject of Toussaint l'Ouverture so "that I may do something in my humble way for the great cause of Negro emancipation". [4] Charles Sumner wished Longfellow would devise verses on slavery; Sumner wrote to Longfellow encouraging him to "write some stirring words that shall move the whole land". [7] Longfellow traveled to Europe for six months in 1842 for his health. In October, before he set sail back home from England, he wrote to Charles Sumner from Charles Dickens's study and mentioned that Dickens's new book, American Notes , had a chapter on slavery. [8] Longfellow wrote the poems soon to be collected as Poems on Slavery that month while on the return voyage to the United States, which fulfilled Sumner's request. [9] [7] Of the eight poems, seven were written while Longfellow was confined to his cabin during a fifteen-day storm. He envisioned his poems during the sleepless nights and then wrote them in the morning. When Longfellow returned home he added a poem he had written previously, and published the eight poems in a 30-page pamphlet. [6]
The poem "The Good Part" was deemed inappropriate, without any type of explanation, [4] for reprinting in Longfellow's Poems on Slavery, by the New England Anti-slavery Tract Association in 1843. [2] In January 1843, Longfellow corresponded with Rufus Wilmot Griswold about reviewing his Poems on Slavery in Graham's Magazine . Griswold wrote to Longfellow that George Rex Graham objected to publishing the title of Longfellow's work, and the magazine made no mention of the poems. [8] In December 1843, Elihu Burritt requested Longfellow's permission to print some of his Poems on Slavery as tracts. [3] In 1845, Poems on Slavery was omitted from Longfellow's collected Poems due to his worry that they could ruin sales in the Southern and Western states. [2]
Longfellow sent several letters and copies of the poems to friends and family. In a letter to Henry Russell Cleveland in November 1842, Longfellow told of how he had written the poems on his way home and "shall not dare to send them to you in Cuba, for fear of having you seized as an Abolitionist". [8] In December 1842, Longfellow sent a letter to John Forster with a copy of the poems. Longfellow wanted to see the how society would respond to the poems and wanted to add more later. A letter that Longfellow wrote to William Plumer Jr discussed how he wrote his poems in a kind spirit. Longfellow sent a letter to his father, Stephen Longfellow, in January 1843, discussing how he thought the poems made an impression. [8] He wrote Ferdinand Freiligrath in January 1843 to let him know that he had used one or two of the wild animals from his menagerie for the poem Slaves Dream. [8] Longfellow wrote to George Lunt that he was "sorry you find so much to gainsay in my Poems on Slavery" [8] and spoke about his beliefs by using an article by William Ware from the Christian Examiner. Longfellow received many letters about his poems and some people even regretted that Longfellow had written them. Longfellow said his feelings prompted him to write about such things and that he had no regrets about writing them. [8] Longfellow refused to speak at antislavery rallies, though John Greenleaf Whittier attempted to get him to run as a candidate for an antislavery party for Congress. [10] Longfellow felt the apparent political nature of the Poems on Slavery was not something he wished to do again. [5]
The book received attention due to it being such a controversial topic and Longfellow's notability. [4] Margaret Fuller, editor of The Dial, reviewed Longfellow's poems in her magazine. She called it "the thinnest of all Mr. Longfellow's thin books; spirited and polished, like its forerunners; but the topic would warrant a deeper tone". [11] In 1843 John Forster wrote a lengthy review of slavery and Longfellow's poems in the English magazine The Examiner . Forster said about Longfellow's poems: "An excellent feeling predominates throughout them, and much graphic power is displayed in the descriptions. Admirable, and most picturesque is this which follows." [12] In May 1843, Longfellow wrote a review of his Poems on Slavery to Isaac Appleton Jewett in a personal letter. Longfellow spoke of how the poems had favorable reception from people, and how he thought that they were "so mild that even a slaveholder might read them without losing his appetite for breakfast". [8]
Even though Poems on Slavery are considered mild today and lacked widespread recognition, the poems are still in print today along with his other poems. Janet Harris, in 1978, remarked on the courage it must have taken for a man like Longfellow, who took such great interest in the public perception, to publish these controversial poems in 1842, even at the risk of it hurting sales for his other writings. [4] Harriet Beecher Stowe reprinted "The Quadroon Girl" in Chapter IV of A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin . [13] Paul K. Johnston, Professor of English at State University of New York at Plattsburgh, notes that Poems on Slavery, like Uncle Tom's Cabin , is "rehabilitated as a political statement on behalf of its marginalized characters", and has survived a half-century of formalist literacy in the 20th century that considered his and Stowe's work merely sentimental and didactic. Johnston notes also that some of Longfellow's "strategies and images" anticipate Stowe's. [5]
Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The character was seen in the Victorian era as a ground-breaking literary attack against the dehumanization of slaves. Tom is a deeply religious Christian preacher to his fellow slaves who uses nonresistance, but who is willingly flogged to death rather than violate the plantation's code of silence by informing against the route being used by two women who have just escaped from slavery. However, the character also came to be criticized for allegedly being inexplicably kind to white slaveowners, especially based on his portrayal in pro-compassion dramatizations. This led to the use of Uncle Tom – sometimes shortened to just a Tom – as a derogatory epithet for an exceedingly subservient person or house negro, particularly one accepting and uncritical of his or her own lower-class status.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha", and "Evangeline". He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the fireside poets from New England.
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was an American author and abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by enslaved African Americans. The book reached an audience of millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and in Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings as well as for her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.
Lydia Maria Child was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, Native American rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American expansionism. Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories.
John Greenleaf Whittier was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings, as well as his 1866 book Snow-Bound.
Elihu Burritt was an American diplomat, philanthropist, social activist, and blacksmith. He was also a prolific lecturer, journalist and writer who traveled widely in the United States and Europe.
The tragic mulatto is a stereotypical fictional character that appeared in American literature during the 19th and 20th centuries, starting in 1837. The "tragic mulatto" is a stereotypical mixed-race person, who is assumed to be depressed, or even suicidal, because they fail to completely fit into the "white world" or the "black world". As such, the "tragic mulatto" is depicted as the victim of the society that is divided by race, where there is no place for one who is neither completely "black" nor "white".
Twelve Years a Slave is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details himself being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before he was able to secretly get information to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, and describes at length cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana.
Africa is an unincorporated community located in Orange Township of southern Delaware County, Ohio, United States, by Alum Creek.
"The Village Blacksmith" is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in 1840. The poem describes a local blacksmith and his daily life. The blacksmith serves as a role model who balances his job with the role he plays with his family and community. Years after its publication, a tree mentioned in the poem was cut down and part of it was made into an armchair which was then presented to Longfellow by local schoolchildren.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is a historic home and National Historic Landmark at 63 Federal Street in Brunswick, Maine, notable as a short-term home of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Calvin Ellis Stowe and where Harriet wrote her 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Earlier, it had been the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a student. It is today owned by Bowdoin College. A space within the house, called Harriet's Writing Room, is open to the public.
"A Psalm of Life" is a poem written by American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, often subtitled "What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist". Longfellow wrote the poem not long after the death of his first wife and while thinking about how to make the best of life. It was first published anonymously in 1838 before being included in a collection of Longfellow's poems the next year. Its inspirational message has made it one of Longfellow's most famous poems.
"Paul Revere's Ride" is an 1860 poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that commemorates the actions of American patriot Paul Revere on April 18, 1775, although with significant inaccuracies. It was first published in the January 1861 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It was later retitled "The Landlord's Tale" in Longfellow's 1863 collection Tales of a Wayside Inn.
The Liberty Party was an abolitionist political party in the United States prior to the American Civil War. The party experienced its greatest activity during the 1840s, while remnants persisted as late as 1860. It supported James G. Birney in the presidential elections of 1840 and 1844. Others who attained prominence as leaders of the Liberty Party included Gerrit Smith, Salmon P. Chase, Henry Highland Garnet, Henry Bibb, and William Goodell. They attempted to work within the federal system created by the United States Constitution to diminish the political influence of the Slave Power and advance the cause of universal emancipation and an integrated, egalitarian society.
Francis Johnson Webb was an American novelist, poet, and essayist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His novel, The Garies and Their Friends (1857), was the second novel by an African American to be published, and the first to portray the daily lives of free blacks in the North.
American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses is a book written by the American abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld, his wife Angelina Grimké, and her sister Sarah Grimké, which was published in 1839.
James Cropper (1773–1840) was an English businessman and philanthropist, known as an abolitionist who made a major contribution to the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833.
Mary Espartero Webb was an American actress and orator known for her dramatic readings of poetry and literature. She toured the northern United States and performed in Europe as a protégée of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
"The Quadroons" is a short story written by American writer Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) and published in The Liberty Bell in 1842. The influential short story depicts the life and death of a mixed-race woman and her daughter in early nineteenth century America, a slave-owning society.