The Mind as Freedom: George Moses Horton
2 min read
Before freedom could be claimed with the body, it had to be claimed with the mind.
George Moses Horton (1798–1883) was born enslaved in North Carolina and taught himself to read by listening outside classrooms at the University of North Carolina. He later sold poems to college students to fund his education and advocate for his own freedom. Horton is recognized as the first African American poet to publish a book in the United States while still enslaved.
Horton’s poetry does not rely on religious conversion or moral obedience. Instead, it centers intellect, observation, and the belief that the mind itself is a site of dignity and autonomy. His work argues quietly but firmly that knowledge is not something granted. It is something claimed.
That belief is clear in the poem below.
Praise of Creation
George Moses Horton (Public Domain)
O praise the power that formed the world,
Exalted be the name adored;
The skies with radiant beauty furled
Proclaim their Maker’s sovereign word.
The sun that walks his glorious way,
The moon that rules the night serene,
Declare a wise and wondrous sway
In all the scenes that intervene.
Each flower that blooms in silent grace,
Each stream that glides with gentle force,
Bears witness to a shaping face
That guides, but does not break, its course.
So may the mind, by knowledge stirred,
Rise upward from its bounded sphere,
And prove that thought itself conferred
A nobler freedom dwelling here.
What makes this poem endure is its conclusion. Horton begins with the natural world, but he ends with the mind. In a society built to restrict Black intellectual life, he frames learning as elevation and thought as proof of freedom.
On this Poetic Thursday, we honor poetry not as ornament or performance, but as evidence — evidence that intellect has always been a form of resistance, even when expressed quietly.
Learn more about this phenomenal poet on our substack The Mind That Refused Enslavement: George Moses Horton
