Horton, George Moses, 1798?-approximately 1880

George Moses Horton (circa 1797-circa1883) was a Chatham County, N.C., slave who taught himself to read and compose poetry. By the age of 20, he began visiting the University of North Carolina and selling to the students acrostic love poems based on the names of their girlfriends. His literary efforts were encouraged by a number of well-placed individuals, including the novelist Caroline Lee Hentz, North Carolina Governor and later University President David L. Swain, and newspaperman Horace Greeley.

Hentz helped Horton publish his first work, Liberty and Slavery, in the Lancaster [Mass.] Gazette on 8 April 1829. This was the first known poem written by a slave protesting his status. Horton's The Hope of Liberty, also published in 1829, was the first publication in the South by an African American.

[Adapted from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography . For further information, see The Black Poet by Richard Walser (1966).]

OTHER HORTON HOLDINGS IN THE SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION

Additional Horton manuscripts can be found in the following collections:

From the Pettigrew Family Papers (#592), seven poems, 1836 and undated (folder 568):

The Emigrant Girl

On Ghosts

An acrostic (Doctrine Davenport) Mr. Davenport's address to his lady

An acrostic (Mary M. Davenport) His lady's reply

An acrostic (Mary Pettigrew Davenport) To their little daughter

The Pleasures of a College Life

An acrostic (Julia Shepard) On the pleasures of beauty

From the Gillespie and Wright Family Papers (#275), two acrostics on the same sheet, undated (folder 17):

Lo Twilight memorys sweet and pleasing beam

Joy may revive in sorrows lonely vale

From the David L. Swain Papers (#706), three letters, 1844, 1853, and undated:

To: Gov. Swain from George M. Horton of colour, 3 September 1844

To: [Horace Greely] from George M. Horton of colour, 11 September 1853

To: Gov. Swain from George M. Horton, poet, [undated]