{ 457 “An Essay on Slavery” An Unpublished Poem by Jupiter Hammon A previously unknown poem written by Jupiter Hammon of Long Island is one of the most important discoveries related to this eighteenth- century poet and slave in nearly a century.1 he poem, entitled “An Essay on Slavery, with Submission to Divine Providence, Knowing hat God Rules over All hings,” directly addresses questions concerning slavery and is by far the most outspoken antislavery statement by this oten-neglected eighteenth-century writer. Jupiter Hammon was owned by the Lloyd family of Lloyd’s Neck, Long Island. he Lloyds were wealthy and inluential merchants and agricultur- alists with commercial and religious ties throughout New England and Great Britain. Jupiter Hammon was born into slavery on October 17, 1711, at the newly constructed Lloyd Manor House, which had just been com- pleted a month prior (Scott and Klaky 9,12). Hammon would live a long life, serving three generations of the Lloyd family, including his irst master Henry Lloyd (1685–1763); Henry’s son Joseph Lloyd (1716–80); and inally John Lloyd II (1745–92), Joseph’s nephew, to whom Hammon was be- queathed ater Joseph’s suicide in 1780. John Lloyd’s sister was Sarah Lloyd, who married James Hillhouse on January 1, 1779. James Hillhouse was a New Haven, Connecticut, lawyer and real estate developer who served as an oicer during the Revolutionary War and soon ater became one of the new nations’s most sucessful and powerful politi- cians. He served three terms in the US Congress and then served in the US Senate from May 1796 to June 1810, when he resigned. Aterward he spent the last ten years of his life as treasurer of Yale College (Van Slyck 52). It is through the marriage of Sarah Lloyd to James Hillhouse that the Lloyd family of Long Island becomes strongly connected to the Hillhouse family of New Haven. Sarah, James Hillhouse’s new bride, however, died from medical complications sufered during the delivery of their irst child (who also died soon ater birth) in November of the same year they were mar- CeDRICK MAY University of Texas at Arlington JULIe MCCoWn University of Texas at Arlington