(LITERATURE) Michael Fortune New Year’s Anthem for 1808

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(LITERATURE.) Michael Fortune. New Year's Anthem, for 1808, in an issue of the Columbian Centinel. 4 pages, 21 x 14 inches, on one folding sheet; moderate foxing and wear, repairs at folds not affecting poem. Boston, 30 January 1808

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A poem in honor of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, written by a Black Philadelphian. Reporting on the national New Years Day celebrations of the new legislation, this Boston newspaper notes: "The following anthem, written by a black, on the occasion, was sung in the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, Philad."

Michael Fortune was a grocer and lottery ticket salesman who sometimes used poetry in his advertisements. He had corresponded with President Jefferson in 1801, and sent a copy of his poem "Jefferson and Liberty" (See the National Archives Founders Online). Among the nine verses in the New Year's anthem, Fortune writes: "Lift up your souls to God on high! / The fountain of eternal grace, / Who with a tender father's eye / Look'd down on Afric's helpless race!" It was published the next month in pamphlet form, as an accompaniment to a longer poem by Absalom Jones. It was also anthologized by Dorothy Porter's 1971 "Early Negro Writing, 1760-1837."