Lucy Terry
-History Singer-
Susan Robinson
The
baby whose slavery name would become Lucy Terry was born in Africa around
1730. Slave traders sold her in Rhode Island while she was very young,
and it is believed that she was purchased by the Terry family of Enfield,
Connecticut. At the age of
five she was sold again, to Ebenezer Wells, of Deerfield, Massachusetts.
Wells had Lucy baptized in the Puritan church in Deerfield; she
became a member of the church when she reached the age of fourteen.
It is not known how Lucy Terry became literate, but it is reasonable
to conclude that she was taught while growing up in the Wells household.
Lucy Terry remained with the
Wells family until 1756, when she married a free African American man,
Abijah Prince. Lucy became a
free woman, although it is not known whether her husband had to buy her
freedom or if Wells freed her of his own accord.
Abijah and Lucy Terry Prince had six children; at least one of their
sons, Cesar, is known to have fought in the Revolutionary War.
Lucy Terry Prince composed poetry that was transmitted orally, as was common in colonial times. Because most of her works were not formally published, only the poem Bars Fight remains; a Deerfield resident, Harriet Hitchcock, recorded it from memory after Lucy Terry Prince s death. It was printed in 1855 (Josiah Holland s History of Western Massachusetts) for the first time, more than one hundred years after it was composed, and was thus preserved. The poem describes a violent incident between settlers and Native Americans in Deerfield in 1746.
Bars Fight
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 coming
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.
The Princes later settled in Vermont. Abijah
Prince, who already owned land in Massachusetts, acquired holdings in
Vermont and was one of the founders of the town of Sunderland, Vermont. Lucy Terry Prince s reputation as a skilled storyteller and
orator grew, and in the 1790s she became the first African American woman
to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Princes had become involved in a land dispute with one Colonel
Eli Bronson, and had retained Isaac Ticknor (who would later become a
governor of Vermont) as legal counsel. Despite having hired a lawyer, Lucy Terry Prince went before
the Supreme Court personally, and won the case.
Abijah Prince died in 1794. Some accounts say that Lucy Terry Prince argued before the board of Williams College in an attempt to persuade them to admit one of her sons if this indeed occurred, the attempt failed. Lucy Terry Prince died at the age of ninety-one in Vermont. She is remembered as the first Black woman to present a case to the Supreme Court (and win), and as our earliest-known African American poet. []
