Figure 1 www.loc.gov
“We are not Beasts as you count, and use us, but rational Souls. Can we help it if the Sun, too close and fervent kisses… tinctured us with a dark complexion?” – Thomas Tryon
Marian Muldrow
ENGL 5125
Professor Erben
17 November 2006

The Free Slave
I am black and powerful.
I wonder why my pain hurts so loud.
I hear the bell of freedom.
I see the bright light in the sky.
I want to be pure in His sight.
I am black and powerful.
I pretend that I don’t feel the pain.
I feel the kisses of a thousand clouds.
I touch my own inner beauty.
I worry my burden will become too heavy.
I cry when no one thinks I can feel.
I am black and powerful.
I understand things meant to be hidden.
I say I will own the soil I walk on daily.
I dream that heaven is a whisper away.
I try to love, as they hate.
I hope no one can hear my pain.
I am black and powerful.
- Marian Muldrow
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Editorial Note
In transcribing this text, I kept the original spelling the same. Slavery was a time of African Americans, former Africans, finding and developing their own understanding and way of communicating within the larger context of the English language. By changing the language and words, I would in essence change our nations literary past.
Figure 1 The design was originally adopted as a seal of the Society for the
Abolition of Slavery in England as early as 1787. The item is housed in the Rare Book,
Broadside Collection, portfolio 118, no. 32a at the Library of Congress.

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I feel that it is not a secret or little known fact that slavery was a prominent component in the shaping of the United States of America. Because of that, I was particularly interested in transcribing a text centered on slavery. Slavery, history and
Christianity are important and intriguing to me. The fact that slaves were religious sparks a curiosity in me that I wanted to attempt to understand and cultivate into the minds of those who lack a full understanding of slavery, racism, Christianity, and its lingering impression on today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Furthermore, I choose poetry because of the way speakers of poems can manipulate and alter words to make them mean so many things in, at times, so little space. While the white reader would read the text as the black writer dwelling in circumstance, the black writer is actually telling his people ways out of their present conditions.
Because time was so precious for them, that could be the reason for the short, but allusive, language in the poems. For example, in Alfred Campbell’s “Jesus, Give me of
Thy spirit,” a white reader would take the lines
I would be Thy imitator
I would choose Thee for my guide,
Oh! Thou loving Mediator to mean that the slave condones his or her place in society as ordered by the white man.
Whereas a fellow slave would understand that they were ultimately working and living for Jesus, and He guided their lives; not the white man for whom they worked.
I constantly tell my students, who struggle to grasp the language that we speak everyday, that without words, I would not have anything to say. Without words and a

Muldrow 5 past filled with poetry and expression, we would be a nation of wondering souls with no sense of where we were going or where from where we came. Since the poetry of
Campbell, specifically “The Divine Mission,” “Jesus, give me of Thy Spirit,” and “A
Land Above Us” ties in both my passions, poetry and Christianity, I thought it only fitting to uncover a part of the nation’s past, Christianity and how slaves gained and maintained it, that seems unmentioned, yet so evident, in the larger society.
It seems as if poetry has always made its way into the literary sphere throughout the different eras of literature. The age of slavery was no different. Poetry is the
“founding moment of African American literature” (Keizer 592). It was a way for slaves to voice their feelings about the injustice being committed against them by means of
Christian scriptures.
Poetry allowed slaves to express themselves in a life where voice and opinions were non-existent. It allowed them to escape to a “sort of trance or faraway state of being” (Farmer 146). They had the opportunity to feel free in a time where the word was a silent shriek on the lips of all of those who were not white. In addition, poetry was a genre of writing that was meant to be read aloud. Since many slaves could not read, being able to verbalize their feelings was very important to them. Furthermore, like most accounts and writings from early Americans, such as Native Americans and that of
Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, they wrote about the conversion experience of religion, more specifically Christianity. Slaves would gravitate towards religious texts and share that with their counterparts.
Even though this was a literary time for blacks to speak their emotions because of the lack of written literary knowledge, there were slaves who could read. Some slaves

Muldrow 6 immersed into a world of literacy despite the fact that doing so was taboo in the early to mid 1800’s. This accomplishment occurred through the aid of their masters. However, it was not simply an act of kindness in many instances, nor did this ability come without its retributions. According to Janet Cornelius in “‘We Slipped and Learned to Read:’ Slave
Accounts of the Literary Process 1830-1865,” literacy became “a two-edged sword: owners offered literacy to increase their control, but resourceful slaves seized the opportunity to expand their own powers. For masters, it became a way to take enslavement to another level because they could travel and dictate documents and messages for their owners. They would also send messages home in the event that something happened to the masters. In addition, it allowed literate slaves “privacy, leisure time, and mobility” (Corneluis171). Thus, literacy, both written and spoken, allowed slaves a chance to either accelerate themselves onto a higher plateau or caused them to slip even further into the midst of not being acknowledged as a complete person.
Not all slaves received the all too desired rights to literacy. As one would expect, the slaves referred to as house slaves usually gained access into this somewhat coveted world. Cornelius does not detail how one became or gained the label of house slave.
What she does account is the fact that approximately seventy –one percent of slaves learned to read before twelve, and twenty –nine percent learned after the age of twelve
(Cornelius175). The tools and resources that whites received were not available to blacks in the same capacity. Even with this setback, considering the time and culture realities, these numbers come as a surprise.
There were various ways that slaves gained literacy. Those who taught slaves were usually the master or other slaves. Masters had to be careful of other slave owners

Muldrow 7 finding out because “patrols, mobs, and social ostracism faced owners who taught their slaves” (Cornelius173). Parents who became literate also taught their children. They did this by either “sending them to school with their master’s children or sharing what they learned” (Cornelius177). Though few slaves admitted to literacy during slavery, many former slaves felt it a status symbol to proclaim it after slavery ceased.
Slavery is a term that brings about unpleasant thoughts and tension when mentioned among people, especially so when they are of various races. It is, some believe, what shaped America, and what molded the ideology of its people. However, to understand the period and what, not only slaves, but whites as well were going through, it is best to see the period through its historical framework. Slavery did not happen just by chance. It actually “evolved out of the practice of servitude [by whites] in English
America” (Cantor 452). What did happen by chance was the fact that blacks were the people to receive this dishonor. New Englanders thought that to be a slave, slaves had to be treated with brutality. In order to do this, “it was necessary to find [a slave] less than a man; to find him a beast, a thing without a soul to lose. The goal was attainable since the
Negro was… different in color, language, religion, and appearance” (Cantor 457).
Consequently, the role of a slave became a role for people of inferior status. Others, who were not slaves, viewed them as being different in a sociably unacceptable manner.
Many considered the black race to be inviolable. To be white meant one was superior to everyone else, and it became the epitome of beauty and acceptance. This idea transmitted into other areas including poetry and the arts. It became a medium for men to get women. A poem written during the colonial period demonstrates this belief.
Her eyes to suns, her skin to snow compare,

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Her cheeks to roses, and to jet her hair:
And thus, and only thus you’ll please the Fair (Cantor 458).
Since this standard of beauty was set, it made it harder for blacks to transcend out of their state of darkness.
Because of the wavering of abolishing or justifying slavery, it became a part of the political and cultural debate of the time. Slaves wanted freedom right then; however, the masters tried to teach them that freedom would come in the next life. Masters attempted to instill in their slaves that “God Himself condoned slavery” (Lawrence 384).
They thought that by allowing the slaves to sing and speak about bondage that is where the slaves would remain. In addition, they allowed the slaves to recite their poetry and hymns because the slaveholders thought it improved work ethic. As mentioned, there were ambiguities on the part of the slaveholders. They assumed that the slaves were simply working, as that was their job. Actually, the slaves were using their poetry to send messages to each other and spread information. They were also using it as an opportunity to mingle the teachings of the Bible with the songlike nature of their traditional religion (Lawrence 383).
Even though whites were the ones that enslaved blacks, not all whites agreed with the establishment of such a hierarchal way of living where one race was superior to another. This is where Christianity and slavery merged. According to the research conducted by Milton Cantor, there were those who felt “that only heathens could be enslaved by Christians and that, once a slave had been Christianized, he was automatically free” (454). Because this was the case and the belief openly held when it came to Christianity and slavery, white slave owners thought, “Baptism might bring

Muldrow 9 freedom and loss of property, a possibility that was anathema to most slaveholders.
Finally, there was the fear that conversion would encourage unrest. It would make them
‘greater knaves’ than they were… and possibly ‘result in the cutting of the throats of the baptizers’” (Cantor 454). It seems as if the white slaveholders feared the power of their own religion. Instead of sharing what they were practicing, they attempted to use it to oppress slaves even further. It is no wonder that the slaves sought religion as a source of comfort and liberation. They did not have anything else to reach for, and if it was this powerful and such a vehicle of inspiration and motivation, they had nothing to loss by becoming a part of it.
Even though some slaves’ owners fought against their slaves becoming literate, as with any other debate, there were those who agreed that they should. Some masters
“believed in the intrinsic value of education… and owners felt their slaves should be able to read the Bible (Cornelius 177-78). Whatever the context or reason, slaves, once free, were open to more opportunities financially and socially in a literacy driven new world to them.
Not only were slaves practicing Christianity indirectly because of their masters, religion was a part of their culture before the branding of the label slave. According to
Charshee Lawrence in “The Double Meanings of the Spirituals,” some blacks participated in prayer while living in their tribes (379). They used it as a release of different types of aggression. Its also was a means of creating and strengthening feelings of solidarity among each other (Lawrence 380). If at no other point in their lives, as slaves they would have wanted to feel that connection of family and camaraderie with those to whom they could relate. Coming together for a common activity that they were

Muldrow 10 familiar with gave them this outlet and escape from everyday life. They were able to combine something they knew, religion, with something of their own creation, music, prayerful ideas, and rhythmic body movements. This combination is what fueled slaves to preserve their heritage and eventually abandon slavery altogether. The presence of these ideals is still in today’s black culture. During African American religious services, the “patting feet, swaying bodies, and clapping” hands (Lawrence 382) keep the people interacted and engaged in the service.
Slaves also saw the connection between the land they were in and heaven.
Campbell’s “A Land Above Us” is an example of this. He writes,
For a purer land, happier land
For a home where all is bright;
Where earth’s care is never turning
All thy pleasures into blight?”
They saw hope and freedom, not only in heaven, but also on earth (Lawrence 385). They knew that believing in God would give them the insight into a spiritual balance where all of their needs would be met. Instead of oppressing themselves, they were educating, and in a sense, unshackling themselves.
Cornelius goes on to explain, that for the slaves, the Bible “enabled a slave to undercut a masters’ attempt to restrict Christian teaching to carefully selected Biblical passages” (172). This also plays into the before mentioned double- edged sword. In one respect, by learning to read, the slaves gained access to a wider selection in the Bible other than simply what masters choose to share orally. For the masters, they lost some of their control, scripture by scripture. Learning to read the Bible could potentially liberate

Muldrow 11 the slaves because of the notion of a better life in the next one or the promise of rewards due to obedience that the books make mention throughout the text.
Many former slaves continued writing and gained literary success after abolition.
Phillis Wheatley is an example of a former slave who continued to write poetry. She had her work published even though some critics question the circumstances of its publication. A writer such as Wheatley using the Bible was a thought out technique on her part. Wheatley wrote “in the elegiac, the lyric, and the epic modes, using classical and biblical imagery” (Keizer 592). It ensured that a white audience, which was half of her audience, would read her writing, and she had so much to say without having to speak. In her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” she writes
‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d and join th’ angelic train (Wheatley 890).
A white reader would interpret that she was overtaken by darkness and ashamed of her race when she writes, “Taught my benighted soul to understand.” However, since she was black, she did not see a negative connection to being black; it was simply a part of who she was. In addition, a white reader would assume she is comparing herself and other blacks to Cain, who killed his brother, in a negative way. Actually, she is letting

Muldrow 12 them know that even Cain was under the protection and love of God; therefore, they, as blacks and slaves, have nothing to fear. The line “May be refin’d and join th’ angelic train” is not referring to conforming to the white master. It is a sense of freedom from moral influences around them and an elevation to spiritual awakening.
Little is known about the poet Alfred Gibbs Campbell. He was born somewhere around 1826, and he began writing poems in the 1850’s (Campbell). Since the specific author of the proceeding poems is shrouded in a veil of mystery, the reader of his texts must take with him the experiences and implications that other published authors have brought to the forefront- specifically the before mentioned Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah
Equiano.
In order to understand the text, the reader must approach it with an open heart and mind. One needs to bring sensitivity to the text in order to understand the complexity of life as a slave; furthermore, life as Christian slaves. While reading the text, the reader also has to keep in mind the time of the poems. Approaching them with a modern prospective will only leave the reader wondering what was so difficult about contributing in a preferred religion or living as one chooses. There has to be a detachment from
America as we see it and a mindset of America as we know it.
I feel that we can learn and accept our situations, places, and moments in life regardless of how mundane or unbearable our conditions may seem at the time. Slaves are a primary example of this. We have to search out the positive or become limited by the unchangeable. Nothing in the natural life is permanent. We, as groups of people, as a whole, have to learn to overcome or be forever indebted to circumstance. I hope that the emergence of these poems written at the end of the 19 th
century can allow us to engage

Muldrow 13 and encourage others, even outside of our race, and rise out of the midst of darkness and into the pinnacle of light, which is Christianity. The poems will also allow the silent voice of slaves, who followed the written word of expression, to be understood in the historical and cultural context in which they were written thereby allowing a two hundred year old cry to be heard and interpreted in its true context.

“The Divine Mission”
1 When on the earth had settled moral night,
2 And darkness reigned where once shone Sinai's light;
3 When superstitious rites usurped the place
4 Where beamed Religion once with holy grace;
5 When Justice, Truth and Mercy far had fled
6 From Church and State, and hollow forms instead --
7 Tithings of "anise, mint and cummin," made
8 For sanctimonious priests a thriving trade,
9 Who, like our modern priests, gain-seeking men,
10 God's holy temple made a robbers' den; --
11 At such a time, long centuries ago,
12 From Heaven's high mansions to the earth below
13 An angel band, on gladsome errand bound,
14 Sped to the plains where, seated on the ground,
15 The humble shepherds through the solemn night
16 Watched their loved flocks, and gathered pure delight
17 And holy wisdom, which each glowing star
18 Rained on them with its radiance from afar.
19 Around the shepherds shone celestial light,
20 (Each gem eclipsing in the crown of night,)
21 Making them quake with apprehensive dread,
22 But momentary, for God's angel said,
23 "Fear not, I bring glad tidings unto all
24 "People who dwell on this terrestrial ball."
25 Then Heaven's high dome with sounds harmonic rang
26 As the angelic host in concert sang
27 "Glory to God! Good-will and peace on earth!"
28 Most fitting song to usher in the birth
29 Of Heaven's divinest Son, whose mission grand
30 Eternal Love had from eternal planned!
31 Lo! in a manger where the oxen fed,
32 The Son of God made His first lowly bed;
33 He who, on high, with glory erst was crowned,
34 No prouder birth-place than a stable found.
35 As in our time the North-star's steady ray
36 Guides weary pilgrims on their toilsome way
37 From bondage worse than that of Pharaoh's reign,
38 So there appeared, among the shining train,
39 One flaming star which like a beacon shone,
40 And from the East-land led the sages on,
41 Who, finding Jesus, worshiped him, and rolled
42 Full at His feet their gifts of precious gold,
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43 And incense-breathing gums, whose odors rare
44 Symboled the fragrance of their praise and prayer.
45 When unto manhood had the Christ-child grown,
46 Sunlike, but spotless, His example shone,
47 Teaching the world great truths which long had been
48 Hid by traditions false and priestly din.
49 He trampled on the vain and hollow rites
50 Practiced by vainer, hollower hypocrites,
51 Who hoped by them to bring the heavens in debt,
52 Or blind the omniscient eye of God, while yet
53 They daily added to their ill-got store
54 By stealing bread from God's afflicted poor,
55 And still contrived how they might still steal more!
56 The poor, the blind, the outcast and the slave,
57 The victims of the rich, proud Pharisee,
58 These were the sharers of His sympathy,
59 These were the ones He loved to bless and save.
60 Oh! Holy Christ, Thy mission is not done;
61 Still on oppression shines the noon-day sun;
62 Thy children still are trampled in the dust,
63 'Neath the remorseless heel of power crushed.
64 Dost Thou not hear their grief-extorted cry?
65 Look'st Thou not on them still with pitying eye?
66 Behold, the Oppressor waxes yet more bold,
67 And grasps them with a tighter, sterner hold,
68 While, as of old, the Church and priesthood stand
69 Leagued with Thy foes, and claiming Heaven's command
70 For all their deeds of villainy and crime
71 Which stain with human blood the page of time.
72 But as unto the least of Thine 'tis done,
73 'Neath night's dark cover, or the blazing sun,
74 So is it done to Thee, and Thou wilt yet
75 Thy majesty and power vindicate!
“A Land Above Us”
1 Dost thou ever feel a longing
2 For a purer, happier land,
3 Where no vexing sorrows thronging
4 Round thy pathway ever stand?
5 Dost thou feel a secret yearning
6 For a home where all is bright;
7 Where earth's care is never turning
8 All thy pleasures into blight?
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9 O! there is a land above us
10 Only by immortals trod,
11 And those happy beings love us,
12 And would lead us unto God.
13 We may hear them, if we listen,
14 In the silent midnight hours;
15 May behold their bright eyes glisten,
16 Bending lovingly to ours.
17 And their happy voices, falling
18 On the spirit's listening ear,
19 In celestial tones are calling
20 To their holy, happy sphere.
21 That bright land we may inherit,
22 All its happiness may share;
23 By our Saviour's boundless merit
24 We may have our portion there.
25 Christ will fill thy secret yearning,
26 Christ will yield thee true delight,
27 If thy spirit, to Him turning,
28 Seek His wisdom and His light.
29 When His love for us had brought Him
30 To our world of sin and pain,
31 Never vainly mortal sought Him,
32 Never asked His aid in vain.
33 Then, with confidence relying
34 On His never-changing love,
35 Love supreme, divine, undying,
36 Seek His favor from above.
37 Then thy heart shall gain a treasure
38 Heaven alone to thee can bring:
39 Then thy soul shall know the measure
40 Of the songs the angels sing!
“Jesus, give me of Thy spirit”
1 Jesus, give me of Thy spirit,
2 Make me meek and mild like Thee;
3 Let me all Thy grace inherit,
4 All Thy love and purity!
5 I would be Thy imitator;
6 I would choose Thee for my guide,
7 Oh! Thou loving Mediator
8 Who for my salvation died.
9 Pity, Christ, and help my weakness;
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10 Somewhat of Thy strength impart;
11 Blest Physician, cure my sickness;
12 Heal my sin-diseaséd heart.
13 Give me strength with wrong to battle,
14 Help me error to oppose,
15 Though around me thunders rattle,
16 Thunders from Thy warring foes.
17 In the conflict let me never
18 Shrink with doubt, or fear, or dread,
19 Knowing that the truth forever
20 Is by Thee to triumph led!
21 Confident on Thee relying,
22 I would Thy disciple be,
23 With a firm faith and undying,
24 Ever own Thy mastery;
25 Follow in Thy footsteps ever
26 Whether cross or crown I win,
27 And with hearty, true endeavor,
28 Strive to vanquish all my sin.
29 Help me, Jesus, and Thy spirit
30 Give me, -- make me like to Thee;
31 Let me all Thy grace inherit,
32 Love and strength and purity.
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Works Cited
Campbell, Alfred. “The Divine Mission”, “Jesus, give me of Thy Spirit”, “A Land Above
Us.” Chadwyck-Healey Inc.. African-American Poetry: 1760-1900. University of
West GA. 11 Sep 2006.
Cantor, Milton. “The Image of the Negro in Colonial Literature.”
The New England
Quarterly . 36 (1963): 452-477.
Cornelius, Janet. “We Slipped and Learned to Read.”
Phylon . 44 (1983): 171-186.
Farmer, Paul. “On the Reading of Poetry.” The English Journal . 32 (1943): 146-149.
Keizer, Arlene . “Poetry, Religious and Didactic.” Oxford Companion to African
American Literature. Comp. Andrews, William L. Foster, Frances Smith. Harris,
Trudier. New York: New York Keizer University Press, 1997.
Lawrence- McIntyr, Charshee. “The Double Meanings of the Spirituals.” Journal of
Black Studies.
17 (1987): 379-401.
Wheatley, Phillis. “On Being Brought from Africa to America.”
Early American
Writings.
Carla Mulford. New York: Keizer University Press, 2002. 890-891.