The women most often forgotten are those who come from times and places where they and their people are outcast and discriminated against. A resident of Hartford, Connecticut, Ann Plato (c. 1823 – ?) is one of these women. Although she was the first African American to publish a book of essays, very little is known about her. Researchers have identified her father, Henry Plato, as Native American, perhaps of the Algonquin, and her mother, Deborah, as African American.
What little else we know of her comes from Reverend W. C. Pennington, pastor of the Colored Congregational Church of Hartford and first black graduate of Harvard, who wrote an introduction to her book. His preface, summarized in The Knickerbocker (vol 31, p. 136, 1848), identifies her as a member of his congregation with a “taste for poetry,” whom he dubs The Platoess.
From him, we learn she was a member of his church and a teacher at the Black Zion Methodist Church School of Hartford. Later, she was headteacher at the Elm School. He writes in the preface (here taken from the Knickerbocker article): “My authoress has done well by what nature has done for her in trying for what art will add. She has followed the example of Philis(sic) Wheatley, and Terrence, and Capitain and Francis Williams, her compatriots . . .These all served in adversity and afterwards found that nature had no objection, at least to their serving the world in high repute as poets . . .” He goes on to say: “The history of the arts and sciences is the history of individuals in individual nations. The Romans were not all Ciceros, nor were the Greeks all Homers or Platos. But as Greece has a Plato, why can we not have a Platoess?”
Ann Plato’s volume, Essays: Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Poetry was the second book published by a black woman in the United States, Phillis Wheatley being the first. Ann Plato’s work, published in 1841, has preserved her words. It contains sixteen essays, four brief biographies, and sixteen poems.
In these works, she shows a knowledge of classical and contemporary writings. She was strongly influenced by the work of Lydia Sigourney, a noted Hartford poetess, called the “Sweet Singer of Hartford.” The biographies eulogize four young women of her age who died young. Her poetry is mostly in iambic tetrameter. Her most famous poem is “The Natives of America.”
Her essay topics reflect the milieu of the time, focusing on topics such as piety, education, death, and nature. As an educator, she wrote with a didactic tone.
For many years, Ann Plato was criticized for ignoring the issue of slavery. But as is clear in the following excerpt, she did not ignore justice or equality in her writings.
” Benevolence”
(p. 2 in Essays. 1841)
Youth is the proper season for cultivating the benevolent and humane affections. As a great part of your happiness is to depend on the connections which you may form with others, it is of high importance that you acquire between times the temper and manners which will render such connections comfortable. May a sense of justice be the foundation of all your social qualities. In your most early intercourse in the world, and even in your youthful amusements, may no feelingless be found. Engrave on your minds the sacred rule of “doing unto others as you would wish them to do to you.” For this end, impress yourselves with a deep sense of the original and natural equality of men.
True benevolence should reign in every person; it does not shut our eyes to the distinction between good or bad persons, or between one nation and another, or between two stations; or to warm the heart unequally between those who befriend us and those who hurt us. It reserves our esteem for good and bad men, and our complacency for our friends.
Toward our enemies it inspires forgiveness, humanity, and solicitude for their welfare. It breathes universal candor, and liberality of sentiment. It forms gentleness of temperament, and dictates affability of manners. If human understanding apprehends anything according to truth and right, the benevolent character is the proper object of love of every rational mind, as the contrary is the natural object of aversion.
Works by Ann Plato
Advice to Young Ladies at allpoetry.com
Essays: Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Poetry 1841
Forget Me Not at Poets.org
The Natives of America at Black Then
A Woman’s Work: Ann Plato’s Republic at Society for U.S. Intellectual History
Learn more about Ann Plato
Hartford’s Ann Plato and the Native Borders of Identity by Ron Welburn
Ann Plato by the Poetry Foundation