Jupiter Hammon (October 17,1711-before 1806)

Was a black poet who in 1761 became the first African American writer to be published in the present-day United States.Additional poems and sermons were also published.Born into slavery,Jupiter was never emancipated.He was living in 1790 at the of 79,and died by 1806.A devout Christian,he considered one of the founders of African-American literature.Born in a house known known as Lloyd Harbor,NY-per a Town of Huntington,NY historical marker dated 1990-Jupiter was held by four generations of the Lloyd family of Queens on Long Island New York.His parents were both slaves held by the Lloyd's.Unlike most slaves,his father named Obadiah,had learn to read and write.The Lloyd's encouraged  Jupiter to attend school,where he also learned to read and write.As an adult,he worked for them as a domestic servant,clerk,farmhand,artisan in the Lloyd family business.He became a ferevent Christian,as were the Lloyd's.His first published poem "An Evening Through.Salvation by Christ Penitential Crienes:Composed by Jupiter Hammon,a Negro belonging to Mr.Lloyd of Queen's Village,on Long Island,the 25th of December,1760"appeared as broadside in 1761.He published three other poems and three sermons essays.Not emancipated,Jupiter participated in new Revolutionary War groups such as the Spartan Project of the African Society of New York City.At the inaugural meeting of the African Society on September 24, 1786,he delivered his "Address to the Negroes of the United State of New York"also known as the "Hammon Address."He was seventy-six years old and had spent his lifetime in slavery.He said,"if we should ever get to heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black,or for being slaves.He also said that,while he personally had no wish to be free,he did wish others,especially "the young Negroes,were free.The speech draws heavily on Christian motifs and thelogy.For example,Jupiter said that black people should maintain their high moral standards because being slaves on Earth had already secured their place in heaven.He promoted gradual emancipation as a way to end slavery.Scholars think Jupiter supported this plan because he believed that immeiate emancipated of all slaves would difficult to achieve.New York Quakers,who supported abolition of slavery,published his speech.It was reprinted by several abolitionist groups,including the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.In the last two decades after Revolutionary War and creation of the new government northern states generally abolished slavery.In the Upper South,so many slaveholders manumitted slaves that the proportion of free blacks among African-Americans increased from less than one percent in 1790 to more than 10 percent by 1810.In the United States as a whole,by 1810 the number of free blacks were 186,446,or 13.5percent of all  African Americans.Jupiter's speech and his poetry are often included in anthologies of notable African-American and early American writing.He was the first known African-American to publish literature within present-day  United States.