The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition, that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway.

–  George Washington

 

 

Slave prettily pretending
on the promenade.
A plethora of coins
pushing a false narrative
But then

he was sent from the city
of brotherly love
to break rocks
and dig in the mud
for material
to shore up a house
he can only enter from the back.

Hands that used to craft meals
which earned him accolades appropriate
for the free
are now stiff, swollen
and seditious.

Back on the plantation
the enslaved called low vermin
his six year old daughter was asked
if she missed seeing her father.

“He is free now.”

 

For more information about Hercules, check out the following links:

http://www.npr.org/2008/02/19/18950467/hercules-and-hemings-presidents-slave-chefs

Recollections and Private Memoirs of George Washington

http://www.mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/hercules/#note4