On Slavery
Described in the Gettysburg Centinel as “the celebrated American poetess” in the announcement of her marriage to the Revolutionary War veteran Alexander Sharp in 1812, Isabella Oliver (1771–1843) was raised in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Despite a lack of formal education and a habit of composing poems orally and dictating them to others, she published Poems on Various Subjects in 1805, which attracted more than one thousand subscribers. In this collection primarily of short lyric poems (including elegies on George Washington and Alexander Hamilton), “On Slavery” stands out for its length, reflecting Oliver’s sense that slavery was a central issue of her time.
______________
Among the moral evils which disgrace
The page historic of the human race,
Slavery seems most to blacken the records;
It militates against our blessed Lord’s
Divine instructions. Is it not a shame
For any that assume the christian name,
Who say the influence of his blood extends
From sea to sea, to earth’s remotest ends,
To trade in human flesh, to forge a chain
For those who may with them in glory reign?
But, independent of the christian light,
Humanity is outrag’d, every right
Of human nature trampled to the ground;
By men who deify an empty sound,
And call it liberty, or what they please;
But God will visit for such crimes as these.
Behold the fruitful islands of the main;
Where sweetness is extracted from the cane
Where luscious fruits in rich profusion grow,
And streams of milk and honey us’d to flow:
The cords of slav’ry were so tighten’d there,
Its hapless victims could no longer bear;
But desperation work’d in every brain,
And gave them strength to break the iron chain.
A scene of terror and of blood ensues!
The bare idea petrifies the muse!
Here is a glass: let each oppressing state
Forsake their practice, or expect their fate.
Slavery’s a very monster on the earth,
Which strangles every virtue in its birth:
From the first drawing of the human mind,
Children should be instructed to be kind;
To treat no human being with disdain,
Nor give the meanest insect useless pain:
Yet mark how babes and sucklings learn to rack,
And trample down, the poor defenceless black;
Their little humours ample scope may have,
When only vented—on a wretched slave.
God’s image in his creature they deride,
And daily grow in indolence and pride,
With ignorance and cruelty combin’d;
A Slavery of the most ignoble kind!
O ye, who make and execute the laws,
Exert your influence in so good a cause;
Pursue with zeal some well-arranged plan,
To stop this most unnat’ral trade in man:
This interesting object keep in view:
Much has been done, but much is still to do.
Forever honour’d be their names, who strive
To keep divine philanthropy alive:
But horror seizes every feeling mind,
To hear of depredation on mankind!
Till this inhuman commerce disappears,
Our country must claim kindred with Algiers.
AMERICA! wipe out this dire disgrace,
Which stains the brightest glories of thy face.
’Twas thine against oppressive power to raise
A noble standard, and attract the gaze
Of the surrounding nations, who approve
Thy arduous struggle, rising from a love
Of liberty. Your rights you understood,
And rose, resolv’d like men to make them good;
Through every rank the gen’rous ardour ran;
The poorest lab’rer feels himself a man.
COLUMBIA’S sons put forth their talents now;
Intrepid soldiers, starting from the plough,
A virtuous independence to secure,
Hunger and thirst and nakedness endure.
Such great occasions noble minds invite,
And bring conceal’d abilities to light;
Consummate statesmen in our councils rise,
Fit for their station, honest, brave, and wise;
Our gallant leaders in the martial field
To neither Greece nor Rome the laurels yield;
Nor were it just to pass Columbia’s fair;
Who share the burden should the garland share.
Thy charms, O Liberty! their souls impress,
Behold them patriots even in their dress;
The graceful vestments of the most refin’d,
By their own hands have been with pleasure twin’d;
They throw the shuttle, and they mix the dye,
And ev’n the famed Spartan dames outvie;
Their tenderness and modesty retain;
Gentle, not weak, they vigorously sustain,
Without a murmur, the severest toil;
With their fair hands they cultivate the soil;
Expos’d to summer’s heat and winter’s cold;
Prepare the fuel, and attend the fold;
To give the husband, brother, or the sire
To the hard duties which the times require.
The world can testify this picture true;
From recent facts the muse her colours drew.
But ah! how soon those glowing colours fade!
The sons of Afric form a dismal shade:
Each southern state unnumber’d slaves commands,
Who steel their hearts, and enervate their hands.
There knotted whips in dreadful peals resound,
While blood and sweat flow mingled to the ground,
So fame reports, and rising in her ire
She adds, that some beneath the lash expire.
Ah stop! inhuman! why provoke the rod,
The dreadful vengeance of an angry God!
Behold with trembling the outstretched hand
Of incens’d justice lifted o’er the land!
For crimes like yours, and their pernicious brood,
(For these are parent-sins, and taint the blood)
Malignant fevers through the land are sent,
To punish sin, and lead us to repent;
But if these warnings we refuse to mind,
A train of evils follow close behind;
If we may credit God’s eternal word,
And those examples left upon record.
Are these the blest abodes of liberty!
Is this the generous race that would be free!
The power to whom you fancied honours pay,
From scenes like these with horror turns away!
Wherever genuine liberty is found,
She copies heaven in shedding blessings round.
Should not this fruitful, this salubrious clime
Inspire us with the gen’rous and sublime?
Our hills appear for contemplation made,
Our lofty forests form a noble shade;
These seem the native haunts of liberty:
Was not the wild unletter’d Indian free?
Alas! the mournful truth must be confess’d,
Ferocious passions triumph’d in his breast;
There gloomy superstition’s terrors reign’d;
Insidious wiles his manly courage stain’d;
While sloth and ignorance in fetters bind
The nobler workings of the savage mind.
See these by Europe’s fairer sons displac’d,
With useful arts and polish’d manners grac’d!
Now sturdy labour, with incessant toil
Clears the rude wild, and cultivates the soil.
As art’s first sample clapboard roofs appear;
But soon a neat convenient house they rear;
At length a stately dome attracts the eyes;
And seat with seat in taste and beauty vies.
Now liberal sciences the land pervade,
And philosophic musings court the shade.
The fairest traits of liberty we find,
Where equal laws to peace and order bind,
And true religion elevates the mind.
Oh, slavery! thou hell-engender’d crime!
Why spoil this beauteous country in her prime,
Corrupt her manners, enervate her youth!
Blast the fair buds of justice, mercy, truth!
But, Europe! know, to thy eternal shame,
From thee at first this foul contagion came;
Before we to a nation’s stature grew,
We learn’d this trade, this barb’rous trade, from you:
Should not we now exert a noble pride,
And lay your follies, and your crimes, aside?
Yet not so vain, or self-sufficient be,
As not to copy excellence of thee.
How many futile reasons have been given
For mixing God and mammon, sin and heaven!
Some say, they are of Canaan’s cursed race,
By God ordain’d to fill this servile place:
Was then their lineage fully ascertain’d,
Before they in the cruel hold were chain’d?
Before the tenderest ties of human life
Were torn asunder; the beloved wife
Dragg’d without mercy from her husband’s breast,
And the sweet babes they mutually caress’d,
Carried like cattle;—(Let it not be told!)
By christians too, to be to christians sold?
Their lineage prov’d—it were of no avail;
Here all attempts at palliation fail.
In Joseph’s case we may a parallel see;
Sent into Egypt by divine decree,
His brethren’s evil, God intends for good,
Yet they, as guilty, in his presence stood.
Some plead the precedent of former times,
And bring example in, to sanction crimes:
Greece had her Helots, Gibeonites the Jew;
Must then Columbia have her Negroes too!
By men who by his spirit were inspir’d,
To teach us what our blessed Lord requir’d,
Rules have been given to regulate our lives,
As subjects, husbands, parents, children, wives;
Masters and servants due directions have;
But show a single lesson to a slave.
Those heavenly doctrines have a liberal aim,
And practis’d, soon would abrogate the name.
Our blessed Lord descended to unbind
Those chains of darkness which enslave the mind;
He draws the veil of prejudice aside,
To cure us of our selfishness and pride:
These once remov’d, then Afric’s sable race
No more among the brutal herd we place:
Are they not blest with intellectual powers,
Which prove their souls are excellent as ours?
The same immortal hopes to all are given,
One common Saviour and one common heaven.
When these exalted views th’ ascendant gain,
Fraternal love will form a silken chain,
Whose band, encircling all the human race,
Will join the species in one large embrace.
(1805)