Lucy Terry

Lucy Terry Prince, often credited as simply Lucy Terry, was an American settler and poet. Kidnapped in Africa and enslaved, she was taken to the British colony of Rhode Island. Her future husband purchased her freedom before their marriage in 1756. She composed a ballad poem, "Bars Fight", about a 1746 incident in which two white families were attacked by Native Americans. It was preserved orally until it was published in 1854 by J. G. Holland in the newspaper he edited, The Springfield Daily Republican. It is considered the oldest known work of literature by an African American.