“Wheatake 63” The Negro’s Complaint

“Wheatake 63” The Negro’s Complaint

The Negro's complaint
By William Cooper written in 1788 and published in 1793.
I share this poem as Wheatake 63 after pondering over it for several weeks. In it you will find echoes of similarities to the present, as well as inspirations and encouragements. William Cooper did not know about CoI recommendations but reflect on the similarity of complaints:
"Minds are never to be sold,...
Still in the thoughts as free as ever...
What are England's rights. I ask...
Prove that you have human feelings,
Ere you proudly question ours...."
You may crush the physical, but like the phoenix we will rise, rise,
rise,
Souring higher than your brain designed.
Hold the fort for victory is alive, alive, very much alive.
Self determination is stronger than before.
Here is the poem:
Forced from home and all its pleasures
Afric's coast I left forlorn,
To increase a stranger's treasures
O'er the raging billows borne,
Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though slave they have enrolled me,
Minds are never to be sold.
2
Still in thought as free as ever,
What are England's rights, I ask,
Me from my delights to sever,
Me to torture, me to task?
Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.
3
Why did all-creating nature
Make the plant for which we toil?
Sighs must fan it, tears must water
Sweat of ours must dress the soil.
Think, ye masters iron- hearted
Lolling in your jovial boards,
Think how many backs have smarted
For the sweets your cane affords.
4
Is there as ye sometimes tell us,
Is there one who reigns on high?
Has he bid you buy and sell us,
Speaking from his throne, the sky?
Ask him, if your knotted scourges,
Matches, blood-extorting screws,
Are the means that duty urges
Agents of his will to use?
5
Hark! He answers-Wild tornadoes
Strewing yonder sea with wrecks
Wasting towns, plantations, meadows,
Are the voice with which he speaks.
He, foreseeing what vexations
Afric's sons should undergo,
Fixed their tyrants' habitations
Where his whirlwinds answe-"No."
6
By our blood in Afric wasted
Ere our necks received the chain;
By the miseries that we tasted,
Crossing in your barks the main;
By our sufferings, since ye brought us
To the man-degrading mart,
All sustained by patience. taught us
Only by a broken heart;
7
Deem our nation brutes no longer,
Till some reason ye shall find
Worthier of regard and stronger
Than the colour of our kind,
Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings
Tarnish all your boasted powers,
Prove that you have human feelings,
Ere you proudly question ours!

 

- Dr. Charles H. Wheatley