GM
Meet the Author
George Moses Horton
American · c. 1797–c. 1884 · Poet
An enslaved North Carolina poet who composed verse in his head, sold poems to college students, and published books while still enslaved.
1 StoryBites Edition1 Poem
Why read George Moses Horton?
Horton taught himself to read while enslaved and composed poems in his head before he could write them down. On Summer, from his first book, moves through a hot season in rhymed quatrains full of classical and astrological allusion, from ‘Perspiring Cancer’ to Philomela, the nightingale. Read it for its careful meter and rhyme, and for what it meant for an enslaved man to publish a book of poems in 1829.
A life in six dates
- c. 1797Born into slavery in Northampton County, North Carolina
- 1829Publishes The Hope of Liberty, including On Summer
- 1845Publishes The Poetical Works of George M. Horton
- 1865Freed at the end of the Civil War, and publishes Naked Genius
- 1866Moves to Philadelphia
- c. 1884Dies, probably in Philadelphia; the date and place are uncertain
Themes across the work
The StoryBites Editions
Context that actually matters
Slavery in North CarolinaHorton was enslaved for most of his life, and an 1830 North Carolina law made it a crime to teach enslaved people to read and write.
The University of North CarolinaHorton sold poems, many of them love poems written to order, to students at Chapel Hill.
The hope of freedomThe Hope of Liberty was published to raise money to buy his freedom, but the plan failed.