Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the Poet Abolitionist

Today is the birthday anniversary of a man who was arguably America’s quintessential poet, the great Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Longfellow was not only a vocal critic of slavery, but he also put his money where his mouth was in helping abolitionist causes. Heroes of American history and the American spirit of daring, love of liberty, and ingenuity are immortalized in many of Longfellow’s poems, and it was precisely his fervent patriotism and love of freedom that spurred him to work for the end of that most anti-American and pernicious institution, slavery.

In 1842, Longfellow wrote Poems on Slavery as an effort to force many Americans who might not have witnessed slavery personally to understand how profoundly inhuman and tragic the state of slaves was in America. After that, it was obvious that the poet celebrity had aligned himself with the abolitionist cause.

While Longfellow was not a particularly political person, he was likely influenced to take a stand on slavery by his friendship with ardent abolitionist Republican Sen. Charles Sumner (Mass.), the same who suffered an almost-fatal assault from Democrat Rep. Preston Brooks over his anti-slavery views. Longfellow would later write a tribute poem to Sumner at the latter’s death, calling him a “great man” who “broke a path for the oppressed.”

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The National Park Service explains:

[Longfellow] used his poetry, and his money, to further the cause of the anti-slavery movement in the mid-nineteenth century…Longfellow also maintained an extensive network of contacts with prominent abolitionists. Many of these people knew Longfellow personally, were his friends, and often visited his house at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge. Others he knew through correspondence. He even helped support the abolitionist cause financially through contributions to organizations and individuals.

It has sometimes been the case in American history that celebrities, whether actors or writers, have contributed significantly toward helping the country overcome irrational prejudices. That was true in the 1800s, when multiple famous and popular writers like Longfellow used their talents and fame to expose the ugliness and injustice of slavery.

“The Slave’s Dream” by Longfellow is both moving and heart-wrenching. I highly recommend reading the full poem, but below is just a selection, describing how a slave dreamed of returning to his homeland in Africa, but found the only way to regain liberty was through death:

At night he heard the lion roar,

  And the hyena scream,

And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds

  Beside some hidden stream;

And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,

  Through the triumph of his dream. 

The forests, with their myriad tongues,

  Shouted of liberty;

And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,

  With a voice so wild and free,

That he started in his sleep and smiled

  At their tempestuous glee. 

He did not feel the driver's whip,

  Nor the burning heat of day;

For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,

  And his lifeless body lay

A worn-out fetter, that the soul

  Had broken and thrown away! 

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More harsh and ominous is “The Warning,” Longfellow’s almost prophetic prediction, filled with biblical references, that American slaveowners could not expect to exploit humans as property forever without there eventually being reciprocal blood demanded for it:

Beware!  The Israelite of old, who tore

  The lion in his path,--when, poor and blind,

He saw the blessed light of heaven no more,

  Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind

In prison, and at last led forth to be

A pander to Philistine revelry,-- 

Upon the pillars of the temple laid

  His desperate hands, and in its overthrow

Destroyed himself, and with him those who made

  A cruel mockery of his sightless woe;

The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,

Expired, and thousands perished in the fall! 

There is a poor, blind Samson in this land,

  Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel,

Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,

  And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,

Till the vast Temple of our liberties

A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies. 

It is an interesting context, not directly referred to in the poem, but illuminating for its material, that in the Old Testament God did not allow the Jews to keep their fellow Jews as lifelong slaves — they had to release them every Jubilee year (see Leviticus 25:39-41).

I think Longfellow’s poem is in line with what Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address during the Civil War which Democrats launched to protect their slavery, “if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'”

Longfellow lived to see the devastating conflict that he had foreseen, but he also saw slavery abolished and the right to vote forever secured to Americans regardless of their race. And as a proud part of his legacy, Longfellow helped to sway public sentiment in favor of the abolition and freedom that were so long in coming.

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