Preservation Long Island announces the launch of a major initiative to reinterpret the 18th-century Joseph Lloyd Manor, where Jupiter Hammon (1711–ca.1806), one of the first published African American authors was enslaved and wrote powerfully about the social and moral conflicts slavery raised in the newly formed United States.
Preservation Long Island has been introducing visitors to Jupiter Hammon, America’s first published black poet, at Joseph Lloyd Manor since the house opened to the public in the 1980s. Hammon’s life and writings offer an exceptionally nuanced view of slavery and freedom on Long Island before and after the American Revolution.