Lucy Terry (1730 - 1821)

Brought to Rhode Island as a slave from Africa. Her future husband purchased her freedom before their marriage in 1756. She composed a ballad, "Bars Fight", about a 1746 incident. It is considered the oldest known work of literature by an African American, a ballad about an attack upon two white families by Native Americans on August 25, 1746. The attack occurred in an area of Deerfield called "The Bars", which was a colonial term for a meadow.