George Moses Horton, born into slavery and…

George Moses Horton, born into slavery and taught to read and write by his mother while working on the campus of the nearby University of North Carolina, has recited poems to students who eagerly wrote them down and paid him between 25 and 50 cents per poem.

His fame spread, and a collection of poems, expressing a bitter denunciation of slavery, is published in 1829 under the title The Hope of Liberty.

Horton is the first black southern author and the first African American poet to produce a volume in more than half a century.

The proceeds prove insufficient for Horton to purchase his freedom, and Horton remains a slave (he will not be freed until after the Civil War, when he is in his late sixties).