From “Twasinta’s Seminoles” (Canto IV, XLIX)
This is a land of free limb and free thought—
Freedom for all, home-keeping or abroad,—
Here man is all unhindered, as he ought,
Dreading no priest’s rebuke, no despot’s nod,
In high respect of Right, the friend of God!
Sole sovereign of himself, by nature throned,
Planting his titles in the royal sod,
He spreads his reign were labor’s might is owned,
And harvests revenues for which no subject groaned.
From Twasinta's Seminoles; or, Rape of Florida (Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1885) by Albery A. Whitman. This poem is in the public domain.
Albery Allson Whitman
Albery Allson Whitman was born into slavery on May 30, 1851, on a farm near Munfordville, Kentucky, in Hart County, what Whitman called “the Green River country.” He had at least one sibling, a sister. His mother died in 1862, and his father died soon after emancipation, leaving Whitman an orphan at age twelve. He remained on the farm where he was born and continued to labor there until he moved, first to Louisville, Kentucky, then to Cincinnati. He later relocated to Troy, Ohio, where he worked and, for five months, attended grammar school.