About Lucy Terry

Lucy Terry (1730-1821) was an eighteenth-century poet and orator who was brought from West Africa to Rhode Island via the slave trade as a young girl. Terry was the property of Ebenezer Wells for most of her early life until she married Abijah Prince, a free black man, in 1756. The newlywed couple moved to Vermont and had six children. Terry’s only surviving work is a ballad poem, entitled “Bars Fight” (1746), in which Terry recounts the story of white men and women who were ambushed and killed by a group of Native Americans. Originally, the poem was distributed orally, which is unsurprising given the oral tradition characteristic of African culture, and was not transcribed until 1855. Finally, Terry was an orator known for her argumentation skills𑁋 she once successfully presented before the U.S. Supreme Court to deny false claims alleged by Colonel Eli Bronson, who had stolen land from the Princes.

Although hardly any of Terry’s work is available to us today, she is still worth careful consideration when examining eighteenth-century literary works. In fact, the absence of most of Terry’s work is worth investigating when considering the literary landscape of the period. The oral tradition employed by Africans who were forcibly enslaved and brought to the Americas must be considered when discussing the presence or absence of black writing during the period. When trying to fill in the literary gaps of the period, archivists must ask:

Where are black American writer situated in the landscape? Is it absent or present? Why or why not? What historical or socio-cultural underpinnings may have influenced their position in the period’s anthology? What can explain the delayed transcription of early black American writings?

Such questions are crucial to understanding the condition of black writing during the period. Otherwise, the anthology would be missing an entire population’s literary contributions, i.e. the relevant features of the black cultural and literary traditions of the eighteenth century. Such discoveries can lead to even larger questions about, for example, the similarities or differences between British and African literary traditions of the period. However, the exclusion of writers, like Terry, leave certain questions unasked and, therefore, unanswerable. Furthermore, as enslaved persons were being brought to the Americas, they were postulating about their experiences in the New World just as much as colonists. In fact, pointing to writers like Terry also draw attention to the fact there was a tender period prior to the fermenting of colonialism and racialized thought that permitted black expression. Ultimately, writers like Terry are essential because it provides a holistic view of the eighteenth-century literary traditions.