George Moses Horton
Horton began compiling pieces based on the verses that he remembered from the King James Version of the Bible.
Around 1817, Horton began making the approximately 10 mile (16 km) trip north to Chapel Hill in order to sell fruits and farm products for his master.
Here, Horton took his ability for composing to write love poems for the University of North Carolina students, selling them for 25 cents or more.
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 Shakespeare, 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".
[1]: xv–xvi Caroline Lee Hentz, author and playwright, also took an interest in Horton, teaching him to write and to improve his verses.
Teaching Blacks to read and write was legal in North Carolina until 1836, when restrictions were imposed because of fears about slave revolts.
[4] Twice Horton attempted to have others aid in his freedom, In 1844 he wrote a letter to abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and in 1852 he wrote another letter to Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Daily Tribune, and included a poem titled "A Poet's Feeble Petition" which expressed his longing for freedom.
[4] Arriving in Philadelphia before the summer of 1866,[7] he wrote Sunday school stories on behalf of friends who lived in the city.
Disappointed with the racial discrimination he encountered in Philadelphia, Horton did succeed in emigrating to Bexley, Liberia,[6]: 1244 arriving January 7, 1867.
Like other early Black American writers such as Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley, Horton was deeply influenced by the Bible and African-American religion.
[14] Horton gained the admiration of North Carolina Governor John Owen, influential newspapermen Horace Greeley and William Lloyd Garrison, and numerous other Northern abolitionists.
[19] 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, claiming without evidence: "George never really cared for more liberty than he had, but was fond of playing to the grandstand.
[5] 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.
Published in Raleigh, North Carolina, this collection consisted of 45 poems, none directly about being enslaved or slavery in general.
Also due to North Carolina being more actively pro-slavery nearing the Civil War, Horton believed a collection similar to his first would not be published.
J. Donald Cameron noted Horton among notable North Carolina poets in 1890, in a speech that was reported in several newspapers.
