ST. LOUIS — Saturday marks 315 years since the birth of Jupiter Hammon, an enslaved New York writer whose poetry helped establish a published record of Black intellectual life in colonial America.
Born Oct. 17, 1711, at Henry Lloyd Manor on Long Island, Hammon is recognized as the first published Black American poet. His birthday was recorded in a Lloyd family ledger, according to Preservation Long Island, which interprets his life and writings at the historic Joseph Lloyd Manor property.
Hammon composed his religious poem “An Evening Thought” on Christmas Day in 1760. Pequot Library identifies its publication as a Hartford, Connecticut, broadside in 1761. The work placed an enslaved author’s voice in print before the American Revolution.
He later addressed fellow poet Phillis Wheatley in verse and wrote prose directed to Black New Yorkers. His works explored Christian faith, literacy and the moral tensions surrounding slavery and freedom.
The circumstances of Hammon’s education remain uncertain. Preservation Long Island cautions that no records establish whether he attended the Lloyd children’s school, an important distinction when reconstructing his early life.
Hammon’s legacy reaches beyond a literary first. His surviving work gives readers access to an enslaved writer’s perspective during a period when public arguments about liberty often excluded people held in bondage.
Reading those works alongside the historical record helps preserve a fuller account of who contributed to early American literature and whose voices reached the printed page.
Sources: Preservation Long Island biography; Pequot Library’s archival account.
