Lucy Terry Prince: The Griot's Voice, Peggie Hartwell

1746: Although the education of slaves was prohibited, some enslaved African Americans secretly learned to read and write. They began to record and share their stories, similar to the oral storytellers of West Africa, called Griots. In 1746, Lucy Terry Prince becomes the earliest known African American poet when she writes “Bars Fight.” Not published until 1855, the poem describes an attack between Native American and white families in Prince’s village in Deerfield, Massachusetts.