| 1797 |
George Moses Horton is born in Northampton County, NC. |
| 1800 |
GMH moves with owner William
Horton to Chatham County, with mother and 5 sisters |
| 1800-14 |
GMH lives on Horton Plantation:
400 acres, corn and wheat, 9 miles from Pittsboro between Haw River and New Hope Creek |
| |
GMH tries to learn to read, using
pieces of spelling books, his mother’s hymnal, and the New Testament; GMH tends cows |
| 1814 |
GMH is 17; slave family is broken
up by estate distribution; ownership passes to William’s son James; GMH’s job:
ploughman with horse |
| 1817 |
GMH begins to travel to Chapel
Hill farmers market, Saturday evening through Sunday. Sells fruit and poems and performs
poems from memory (cannot yet read and write); makes up acrostic love poems for UNC
students’ sweethearts, which they transcribe |
| 1828 |
GMH is befriended by Caroline Lee
Hentz, a novelist and faculty wife at UNC. She teaches him to read and write, and arranges
publication of poems; GMH poems published in Lancaster Gazette, Raleigh Register, New York
Freedom Journal. |
| |
Three NC benefactors, including
Governor John Owen, attempt to purchase Horton from Hall, for $100 over the purchase
price; Hall refuses. |
| 1829 |
GMH publishes Hope of Liberty |
| 1831 |
Hentz leaves Chapel Hill; puts
Horton in one of her novels |
| 1832 |
GMH is writing and selling about
12 poems a week, for 25 cents each; begins "hiring out" his time from James for
25 cents per week; begins living in Chapel Hill, working for UNC President Joseph Calwell |
| 1833-43 |
GMH marries a slave from Franklin
Snipes’ farm; has son, Free Snipes, and daughter, Rhody |
| 1843 |
James Horton dies, GMH ownership
passes to son Hall Horton, who raises weekly "hire out" fee to 50 cents. GMH
publishes in Southern Literary Messenger |
| 1844 |
GMH writes to northern
abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to ask for help in purchasing his life; no response |
| 1845 |
GMH publishes The Poetical
Works of George Moses Horton, the Colored Bard of North Carolina; sells copies for 50
cents to raise funds for liberty |
| 1852 |
GMH is 55 years old; writes to
UNC President David Swain, begs him for purchase price of $250; it has become too
difficult for Horton to walk the 8 miles to Chapel Hill. Swain suggests he write to Horace
Greely. GMH writes to Greely, then to Swain again. |
| 1859 |
GMH delivers speech to UNC
students about his life, his slavery, his views, and his philosophy: "An Address: The
Stream of Liberty and Science..." |
| 1860-61 |
UNC students leave university for
war; GMH loses market for poems |
| 1865 |
Union troops enter Chapel Hill;
Horton comes under protection of Capt. William H.S. Banks, 9th Michigan Cavalry
Volunteers; travels with troops, writing poems about the war’s end and love poems for
Union soldiers’ sweethearts. |
| |
Banks helps Horton publish Naked
Genius; promotes book as a way for disabled Union veterans to make their fortunes |
| 1866 |
GMH moves to Philadelphia;
attempts to gain entry to literary society |
| 1883 |
GMH dies, leaving no account of
his final years. A manuscript of 229 pages, "The Museum," now lost. |