Take a look at Jupiter Hammon's An Address to the Negroes of New York
(1797).  Hammon was a slave on Long Island, and America's first black poet.

     A link to a digital version of the text can be found at the "Making of New
York" site (http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/nycrl/history.htm).  Biographical
information about Hammon and links to other sites dealing with African Americans
in New York can be found on the "People" page at the same site.