Lucy Terry

Lucy Terry (1730-1821). Courtesy RealStlNews.

Lucy Terry (1730-1821) was an African-American poet. She is the author of the oldest known work of literature by an African American.

Life

Born in west Africa, Terry was stolen and sold into slavery as an infant. She was owned by Ebenezer Wells of Deerfield, Massachusetts, who allowed her to be baptized into the Christian faith at about 5 years of age during the Great Awakening.

A successful free black man named Abijah Prince purchased her freedom and married her in 1756.

In 1764, the Princes settled in Guilford, Vermont, where all 6 of their children were born: Tatnai, Cesar, Drucilla, Durexa, Abijah, Jr and Festus. Cesar fought in the Revolutionary War.

In 1785, when a neighboring white family threatened the Princes, they appealed to the governor and his Council for protection. The Council ordered Guilford's selectmen to defend them.

A persuasive orator, Terry successfully negotiated a land case before the Supreme Court of Vermont in the 1790s. She argued against 2 of the leading lawyers in the state, (1 of who later became the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont) and won her case against the false land claims of Colonel Eli Bronson. Samuel Chase, the presiding justice of the Court, said that her argument was better than he'd heard from any Vermont lawyer.

She also delivered a three-hour address to the board of trustees of Williams College in order to gain admittance for her son Festus. While she was not successful, her speech was remembered for its eloquence and skill.

Prince died in 1794. By 1803, Terry moved to nearby Sunderland. She rode on horseback annually to visit his grave until she died in 1821 on July 11.

Writing

Terry's only surviving work, "Bars Fight", is a ballad about an attack upon 2 white families by Native Americans on August 25, 1746. The attack occurred in an area of Deerfield called "The Bars", which was a colonial term for a meadow. The poem was preserved orally until it was finally published in 1855.

See also

• Colonial American poets
• African-American poets
• List of U.S. poets

References

• Gerzina, Gretchen Holbrook (2008). Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an extraordinary eighteenth-century family moved out of slavery and into legend. Amistad.
• Shockley, Ann Allen (1989). Afro-American Women Writers 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide. New Haven, Connecticut: Meridian Books.

External links

Poems

• "Bars Fight"
• Lucy Terry Prince at PoemHunter (1 poem, "Bars Fight")

About

• Lucy Terry in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
• Lucy Terry at BlackUSA
• Africans in America: Lucy Terry Prince
• Lucy Terry Prince, Poet and Abolitionist at AA Registry