"Ann Plato" (1824-?)

Was a 19th century mixed-race (African-American & Native American) educator and author.She was the second woman of color to publish a book in America and the first to publish a book of essays and poems.She was born around 1820 or 1824 in Hartford,Connecticut,and was most likely the eldest daughter Henry and Deborah Plato.In the 1828 Hartford City Directory.Henry Plato was listened as a laborer and Deborah was listened as a seamstress,living at 23 Elm Street.Her father was a farmer,and she had one sister,as well as a brother who died young.Like many people of color who lived in America during the 1800s,there exists very little information about her.Most of what is known about her comes from the introduction of her book,written by Rev. James W.C. Pennington,pastor of the Colored Congregational Church of Hartford and the first black man to attend classes at Yale University.James was an important influence on Ann education.In her book's introduction,James wrote of Ann:My authoress is a colored lady,a member of my church,of pleasing piety and modest worth.Ann taught the Free African Schools,housed in the Zion Episcopal Church until 1847.She was a member of the Talcott Street Congregational Church in Hartford.In 1841,at the age of 16,she published her only known book,entitled Essays:Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces in Pros and Poetry.The essays reflected the New England Puritan values of her environment.Topics included "Benevolence,""Employment"and Religion."The essays stressed both the importance of education and of leading a pious,industrious life.The book also contained some poetry and biographies of departed female friends and acquaintances.Some critics from later generations found Ann essays and poetry to be overly moralizing as well as routine and lacking in originality.Many of of them also derided for for not mentioning the issue of slavery in America,as some of her contemporaries like Frances Harper and Charlottee Forten Grimke did.Her one references to slavery in her book concerns its abolition in the West Indies in 1838 (perhaps a reference to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 valid throughout the British Empire).Nothing is known about Ann life after her book was published in 1841.The year of her death canout be found.