Mar 21, 2013 - Sale 2308

Sale 2308 - Lot 365

Price Realized: $ 1,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(LITERATURE AND POETRY.) HAMMON, JUPITER. WEGELIN, OSCAR. Jupiter Hammon, American Negro Poet, Selection from his Writings and a Bibliography by Oscar Wegelin. Frontispiece and five facsimiles, one of eight copies printed on japan vellum. New York: Charles Heartman, 1915
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first edition thus, one of only eight copies, printed on japan vellum, of a total edition of ninety-nine copies. Jupiter Hammon, (1711-circa 1805) African American slave-poet who, in 1761 became the first African American to be published in North America. Born in 1711 in a house now known as Lloyd Manor in Lloyd Harbor, NY (Town of Huntington), Hammon was held by four generations of the Lloyd family. His parents were both slaves held by the Lloyds, but unlike most slaves, his father, named "Opium," had learned to read and write. The Lloyds encouraged young Jupiter as well to attend school, where he too learned to read and write. As an adult, he worked for the Lloyds as a domestic servant, clerk, farmhand, artisan, and devout Christian.
Hammon's first published poem, "An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries. . ." (1760) appeared as a broadside in 1761. He published three other poems and three sermon-essays, portions of all appear in this volume. Although never emancipated, Hammon participated in Revolutionary War groups such as the "Spartan Project" There on September 24, 1786, he delivered his "Address to the Negroes of the State of New York", also known as the "Hammon Address." He was seventy-six years old and had spent his lifetime in slavery. He said, "If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves." He also said that, while he personally had no wish to be free, he did wish others, especially "the young negroes, were free."