SOURCE: "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penetential Cries" and others, in Jupiter Hammon and the Biblical Beginnings of African-American Literature, The American Theological Library Association and The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1993, pp. 41-59, 66-75, 134-41, 191-204.

In the following excerpt O'Neale argues that Hammon was actually one of this country's first African American protest writers. And given the context of eighteenth century society, and especially the fact that he was a slave, Hammon had to couch his criticism of slavery in religious terminology. O'Neale insists that critics who fault Hammon's poetry for its apparent focus on religious salvation rather that physical emancipation are missing the subtle message of protest in Hammon's work.

The essential theme of Hammon's first poem, An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penetential Cries, is prayer. In any urgent petition such as this one, the petitioner starts with the most crucial needs in...