Abstract
Perhaps no writer who published in the eighteenth century has been more consistently misunderstood than the first published Black American poet and essayist, Jupiter Hammon. He was the first preacher of the gospel in America who managed to write aesthetic expression while in the throes of slavery. In all of his works and public protestations he espoused the tenets of Christian thought as the only bases for individual freedom and equality and for national reconciliation. Yet he has not received the same historical acclaim for this position as Jonathan Edwards, John Woolman, Francis Asbury, William Atterbein, or other minister/writers of the era.