George Moses Horton

A marker in North Carolina commemorating the life of George Moses Horton

George Moses Horton (1798–after 1867), "the Black bard of North Carolina", was an enslaved African-American poet from North Carolina. His first collection, The Hope of Liberty (1829), was intended to earn enough to purchase his freedom, but failed to do so. He did not become free until 1865, when Union troops and the Emancipation Proclamation reached North Carolina.

Horton is author of the first book of literature published in North Carolina. Except for Phillis Wheatley, who published in London after Boston publishers turned her down, and before the U.S. existed, he is the first African-American author.

Biography[]

Horton was born into slavery on William Horton's plantation in 1798 in Northampton County, North Carolina.^[1] He was the sixth of ten children; the names of his parents are lost to history.^[2] His owner relocated when Horton was a very young child; in 1800, he and several family members were moved with the master to a tobacco farm in rural Chatham County. In 1814 William Horton gave the youth as property to his relative James Horton.^[1] In 1819, the estate was broken up, and George Horton's family was separated. His poem "Division of an Estate", written years later, reflected on this experience.^[2]

Horton became known as a poet and attempted unsuccessfully to earn from his poetry writing enough to purchase his freedom. Sometime in the 1830s, he "married" (legal marriages were not permitted) Martha Snipes, an enslaved woman owned by Franklin Snipes in Chatham County.^[3]:146 The couple had two children, Free and Rhody. Little else is known about the family.^[4]

At age 60, which means about 1858, he described himself as "Belonging to Hal Horton living now in Chatham County".^[5]:1248

The editorial "Explanation" that opens The Hope of Freedom speaks of Horton's desire to emigrate to the new colony of Liberia; the collection was published so as to encourage donations. A few of the abolitionist papers^[which?] also suggested raising money to buy his freedom and pay for his passage. These efforts were unsuccessful and he was not freed until 1865, when Union troops arrived, liberating, according to the Emancipation Proclamation, all the enslaved in the seceding states. He made friends with the young officer with that group, William H. S. Banks. He left Chapel Hill with this man, eventually arriving in Philadelphia. Banks helped Horton get his collection Naked Genius published the same year.^[6]

Now a free man, at the age of 68 Horton lived in Philadelphia, where he continued to write poetry for local newspapers. His poem "Forbidden to Ride on the Street Cars" expressed his disappointment in the unjust treatment of blacks after emancipation.^[4] Arriving in Philadelphia before the summer of 1866,^[7] he wrote Sunday school stories on behalf of friends who lived in the city.

Horton emigrated to Bexley, Liberia,^[5]:1244 arriving January 7, 1867.^{[3]:151–152} This is the last known reference to him; while later death dates are found in some recent publications, his death location, date, and burial are unknown.^[6] He may have returned to Philadelphia.^[5]:1244 There is no known photograph or drawing of Horton.

The Black bard of North Carolina[]

Horton disliked farm work, and while young, in his limited free time he taught himself to read using spelling books, the Bible, and hymnals.^[2] Learning poetry and snippets of literature, Horton composed poems in his mind, since he did not learn to write until much later. The University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill, was only 8 miles (13 km) from his home, and as a young adult, Horton delivered produce to the university students and kitchens.^[8]:3 He got along well with the students and they saw his gifts: "Some how or other they discoverd a spark of genius in me".^[9]:xiv He composed and recited poems for students, some of whom transcribed his pieces. In addition, he composed poems, usually love poems, by commission for individual students at 25¢ to 75¢ each, "besides many respectable suits of clothes".^[9]:xvi The students also gave him many books: he tells us of "Murray's English Grammar and its accordant branches [(Murray's studies of other languages)]; Samuel Johnson's Dictionary in miniature, and also Walker's [Rhyming Dictionary] and [Thomas] Sheridan's [A Complete Dictionary of the English Language], and parts of others. And other books of use they gave me, which I had no chance to peruse minutely, Milton's Paradise Lost, [James] Thompson's Seasons, parts of Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Ænead ( [sic]), Beauties of Shakespear, Beauties of Byron, part of Plutarch, [Jedidiah] Morse's Geography, The Columbian Orator, [Richard] Snowden's History of the [American] Revolution, [Edward] Young's Night Thoughts, and some others".^[9]:xv–xvi

Horton mentions Leonidas Polk as among the many students he had contact with,^[9]:xv which would indicate a date in the early 1820s.

In 1828 a number of newspapers in North Carolina and beyond discussed Horton's work.^[10] In 1829, his poems were published in a collection titled The Hope of Liberty, which was intended but failed to raise enough funds to purchase his freedom.^[11] The book, funded by the politically liberal journalist Joseph Gales, was published the same year as David Walker's An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World.^[12] Horton is believed to be the first Southern black to publish poetry.^[1] Though he knew how to read, he published the book before he had learned how to write. As he recalled, "I fell to work in my head, and composed several undigested pieces."^[13]

By 1832, Horton had learned to write, helped by Caroline Lee Hentz, who was a writer and the wife of a professor; teaching Blacks to read and write was legal in North Carolina until 1836. She also helped get at least two of his poems published in a newspaper.^[1] Horton had composed a poem on the death of Hentz's first child. As he recalled: "She was extremely pleased with the dirge which I wrote on the death of her much lamented primogenial infant, and for which she gave me much credit and a handsome reward. Not being able to write myself, I dictated while she wrote."^[13] She sent another of Horton's poems to her hometown newspaper in Lancaster, Massachusetts, where it was published on April 8, 1828, as "Liberty and Slavery".^[2]

Horton's first book was republished under the title Poems by a Slave in 1837. It was reprinted with a biography and poetry by Phillis Wheatley a year later.^[6] This book was published by Boston-based publisher and abolitionist Isaac Knapp. Newspapers again took note of Horton, calling him "the colored bard of Chapel Hill".^[14]

In 1845, Horton published another book of poetry, The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, The Colored Bard of North-Carolina, To Which Is Prefixed The Life of the Author, Written by Himself. Newspapers took notice again in December–January 1849 – 1850,^[15] and advertisements for the book were printed in a Hillsborough newspaper from 1852 into 1853.^[16] Horton was given direct credit for some poems published in newspapers in 1857 and 1858.^[17] A newspaper article in Raleigh in August 1865 on Horton was entitled "Naked Genius", of his last book,.^[18]

Horton gained the admiration of North Carolina Governor John Owen, influential newspapermen Horace Greeley and William Lloyd Garrison, and numerous other Northern abolitionists. He was said to be an admirer of Byron, whose poetry he used as a model.^[19]

Writing[]

George Moses Horton's signature

After Horton's first poem was published in the Lancaster, Massachusetts, Gazette, his works were published in other newspapers, such as the Register in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Freedom's Journal in New York City.^[2] Horton's poetic style was typical of contemporary European poetry and was similar to poems written by free white contemporaries, likely a reflection of his reading and his work for commission.^[20] He wrote both sonnets and ballads. His earlier works focused on his life in slavery. Such topics, however, were more generalized and not necessarily based on his personal experience. He referred to his life on "vile accursed earth" and the "drudg'ry, pain, and toil" of life, as well as his oppression "because my skin is black".^[20]

His first collection was focused on the issues of slavery and bondage. He did not gain enough in sales from that book to purchase his freedom; in his second book, he mentions slavery only twice.^[21] The change in theme is also likely due to the more restrictive climate in the South in the years leading up to the Civil War.^[4]

His later works, especially those written after his emancipation, expressed rural and pastoral themes. Like other early black American writers such as Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley, Horton was deeply influenced by the Bible and African-American religion.^[21]

The earliest known critical commentary on Horton's writing is from 1909 by University of North Carolina professor Collier Cobb. He dismissed Horton's antislavery themes, saying: "George never really cared for more liberty than he had, but was fond of playing to the grandstand.".^[22]

In 2017 the only known essay by Horton, "Individual Influence", was published for the first time.^[5]

Horton "firsts"[]

• The first African American to publish a book in the United States.^[23]
• The first published North Carolina author of literature.
• The first enslaved American to publish a book.^[23]
• The "first American slave to protest his bondage in verse; the first African American to publish a book in the South; the only slave to earn a significant income by selling his poems; the only poet of any race to produce a book of poems before he could write; and the only slave to publish two volumes of poetry while in bondage and another shortly after emancipation."^[8]

Legacy[]

Building towards his remembrance, biographies began to appear. The first was by Kemp Plummer Battle in May 1888,^[24] at that time President of the University of North Carolina. J. Donald Cameron noted Horton among notable North Carolina poets in 1890, in a speech that was reported in several newspapers.^[25] Battle reprised his thoughts on Horton in his history of the university, published in 1907.^[26] In 1909 UNC professor Collier Cobb wrote a paper on Horton,^[27] which he published in 1925 at his own expense.^[28] Horton was remembered at the University of North Carolina on the occasion of the visit of James Weldon Johnson.^[29] The centennial of his first book was noted in the New York Age after it was noted in Greensboro.^[30]

• In 1927 Winston-Salem, North Carolina, opened a segregated library for blacks in a YWCA building; it was named for George Moses Horton.^[31]
• In the 1930s, A Horton School, for Black children, opened in Pittsboro, North Carolina. It later became Horton High School. After integration in the 1970s, it became Horton Middle School.^[23]
• In June 1978, North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt declared June 28 “George Moses Horton Day.”^[23]
• In the 1990s, North Carolina erected a historical marker about Horton at the intersection of U.S. 15/501 and Mount Gilead Church Road, Chatham County Road 1700 (35° 47.618′ N, 79° 5.992′ W). According to the marker, he lived about 2 miles (3.2 km) to the southeast.^[32] (See photo)
• In 1996 Horton was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.^[33]
• Also in 1996, the George Moses Horton Society for the Study of African American Poetry was founded in Chapel Hill.^[33][23]
• In 1997, Horton was named as Historic Poet Laureate of Chatham County, North Carolina.^[33][23]
• In 2006, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill named a dormitory for George Moses Horton; it is believed to be the first university dormitory in the country to be named for a slave.^[34]
• In 2015 author/illustrator Don Tate published Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton, an illustrated biography for children. The Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina hosted the national launch of the book on September 3, 2015.^[35]

Published works[]

• Horton, George M. (1829). The Hope of Liberty, containing a number of poetical pieces. Contains "Explanation" from the publisher. Reprinted by Kraus Reprint, 1973. Raleigh, North Carolina.
• Horton, George M. (1837). Poems by a slave. According to a "Preface to the Second Edition" signed by "L. C. G.", who did not know the author, only one copy of the first edition has ever been seen; that copy belonging to Joshua Coffin. The editor says it is reproduced unchanged except for the change of title. (2nd ed.). Philadelphia.
• Wheatley, Phillis; Horton, George M. (1838). Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave : also, Poems by a slave (3rd ed.). Boston: Isaac Knapp.
• Horton, George M. (1845). The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the colored bard of North-Carolina : to which is prefixed The life of the author, written by himself. Hillsborough, North Carolina.
• Horton, George M (1865). Naked Genius. Revised and compiled By William H. S. Banks. Raleigh, North Carolina: Southern Field and Fireside Book Publishing House.
• Horton, George Moses (October 2017). Senchyne, Jonathan (ed.). "Individual Influence". PMLA. 132 (5): 1244–1250. doi:10.1632/pmla.2017.132.5.1244. S2CID 165982360.

See also[]

• History of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Phillis Wheatley

References[]

Further reading[]

• Stewart, Carole Lynn (2018). "George Moses Horton's Freedom: A Temperate Republicanism and a Critical Cosmopolitanism". Temperance and Cosmopolitanism: African American Reformers in the Atlantic World. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. pp. 85–110. doi:10.5325/j.ctv14gp6w6.7. ISBN 978-0271082035.
• Schuessler, Jennifer (September 25, 2017). "In a Lost Essay, a Glimpse of an Elusive Poet and Slave". New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 30, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2017.

• Barrett, Faith (2016). "Naked Genius: The Civil War Poems of George Moses Horton". In Sweet, Timothy (ed.). Literary Cultures of the Civil War. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. pp. 77–96. ISBN 978-0820349596. JSTOR j.ctt189ts7h.9.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Moses Horton.

• The George Moses Horton Project: Celebrating a Triumph of Literacy" by Marjorie Hudson
• The George Moses Horton Project, Chatham Arts Council
• George Moses Horton listing, North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame
• “Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton," Tate, Don, author-illustrator; Peachtree Publishers; Atlanta, Georgia, 2015. Juvenile. ISBN 978-1561458257.