Check out the earliest known piece of literature by a black writer in North America. Although she was still a slave, Lucy Terry's poem was the most accurate account of a deadly raid that devastated a small New England town in 1746.
It wasn't published until many years later (1855) in Josiah Holland's History of Western Massachusetts. It's not the most beautiful poem I've ever read, but the historic significance of it gets me all giddy:-)
enjoy!
The Bar's Fight
BY Lucy Terry
Seventeen hundred forty-six
The Indians did in ambush lay
Some very valiant men to slay
The names of whom I'll not leave out
Samuel Allen like a hero fout
And though he was so brave and bold
His face no more shall we behold.
Eleazer Hawks was killed outright
Before he had time to fight
Before he did the Indians see
Was shot and killed immediately.
Oliver Amsden he was slain
Which caused his friends much grief and pain.
Samuel Amsden they found dead
Not many rods off from his head.
Adonijah Gillet we do hear
Did lose his life which was so dear.
John Saddler fled across the water
And so escaped the dreadful slaughter.
Eunice Allen see the Indians comeing
And hoped to save herself by running
And had not her petticoats stopt her
The awful creatures had not cotched her
And tommyhawked her on the head
And left her on the ground for dead.
Young Samuel Allen, Oh! lack a-day
Was taken and carried to Canada.
*Source
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