One of the first African-American women to be published in the United States, especially for novels (Iola Leroy, 1892), Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a poet, an abolitionnist and a suffragist. Very popular and prolific writer, she died at age 85, nine years before women gained the right to vote.

Like a fawn from the arrow, startled and wild, A woman swept by us, bearing a child; In her eye was the night of a settled despair, And her brow was o'ershaded with anguish and care. She was nearing the river—in reaching the brink, She heeded no danger, she paused not to think; For she is a mother—her child is a slave— And she'll give him his freedom, or find him a grave! It was a vision to haunt us, that innocent face— So pale in its aspect, so fair in its grace; As the tramp of the horse and the bay of the hound, With the fetters that gall, were trailing the ground! She was