Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born in 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland. She was the daughter of free black parents, who died when she was still young. She was raised by her educated uncle, William Watkins. Harper attended a school run by her uncle and after she graduated she taught in different schools. Even though she was a free black woman, she still fought against slavery and was an activist in an antislavery organization and a women’s right movement. Frances Harper was one of the most well-known African-American poets of the 19th century. In 1858, her poem “Bury Me in a Free Land” was published. In this poem, Harper manifested the suffrage and misfortunes the black slaves had to endure and her protestant of being buried in a land where slavery still exists.
By using a simple yet a formal English language, Harper manages to convey the reality of how slaves were treated brutally and tortured continuously on a daily basis and how she hopes that slavery would vanish and never return. However, we can perceive from the beginning of the poem what the theme is about. Prior to the Civil War which begun in 1861, there were almost four million black slaves located in America. Slaves would work for free in terrible living situations; they were put together in one place to sleep, usually in wooden shacks. They were given only two sets of clothing to wear for an entire year. Also, the slaves were beaten and tortured by their masters without having the right to defend themselves.