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Human or Object? The Slave’s Voice in “The Negro’s Complaint”

“Forced from Home and all its pleasures Afric’s coast I left forlorn,

To increase a stranger’s treasures O’er the raging billows borne;

Men from England bought and sold me, Pay’d my price in paltry gold,

But though slave they have enroll’d me Minds are never to be sold.

Still in thought as free as ever

What are England’s rights, I ask, Me from my delights to sever,

Me to torture, me to task?” (1-12)

The system of slavery expected slaves to sacrifice themselves in order to benefit their

white masters’ treasuries. Slave owners believed that enslaved people were inferior, non-human

even, which allowed the owners to objectify the enslaved as tools. Early abolitionists like

William Cowper, however, challenged the idea that enslaved people were inherently subordinate.

In the poem “The Negro’s Complaint,” Cowper uses the voice of a slave to question this

objectification in order to demonstrate that slaves are humans too.

By using the first-person perspective of an enslaved person, the poem demonstrates that

the slave is an individual who has his own story to narrate. From the start of the poem, the slave

takes control of his story, stating that he was “forced from Home and all its pleasures / Afric’s

coast I left forlorn” (1–2). Although the slave recognizes his oppression with the word “forced,”

which indicates his lack of power, he asserts his individuality when he says, “I left forlorn.” The

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enslaved speaker, in other words, puts his emotional state at the center of his narrative instead of

his “forced” departure, the moment that turned him into a slave. Indeed, in referencing that he

had a “Home” in Africa, the slave not only reveals he had a past when he wasn’t a slave but that

there was also a time when he had the right to possess something. The capitalization of “Home”

emphasizes this ownership by turning the common noun into a proper one. Both of these

qualities—the speaker’s self-awareness and his ability to own property—make him a someone

rather than a something. Along with possessing a home, the enslaved person also possesses

feelings, another marker of his individuality. Besides feeling “forlorn,” the slave is capable of

feeling “pleasures,” which indicates the range of emotions he owns and feels (1). This emotional

capacity suggests the slave is aware of how unfair it is for him to be forced from home to

“increase a stranger’s treasure” (Cowper, 3). Even though the speaker acknowledges he is just

considered a tool that contributes to the enrichment of his white master, he controls his story by

telling it through his own voice.

In addition to proving the slave’s individuality, the first-person perspective demonstrates

that the slave’s mind is capable of free thought and critical thinking, which enable him to

question his objectification. In line 6, he states that slave owners “pay’d my price in paltry gold,”

meaning that he realizes he was lowered to the level of objects that could be “bought and sold”

with “paltry gold” (5). By recognizing this monetary exchange and how wrong it is, the speaker

interrogates his dehumanization and the self-importance of the white masters. Yet even though

he was “bought and sold,” the slave still claims some freedom. As he argues, “But though slave

they have enroll’d me / Minds are never to be sold” (7-8). The white masters, that is, only

“bought and sold” his body; he is “still in thought as free as ever” (9). And with this mental

independence, the enslaved speaker fights for his physical independence when he questions the

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legality of his enslavement: “what are England’s rights, I ask / Me from my delights to sever, /

Me to torture, me to task” (10-12). With this question, the slave pokes holes at England’s

presumed “rights” to “torture” and “task” him, thereby undermining the English’s belief in their

supremacy and racial superiority (9). These lines also, once again, establish the slave’s humanity

because only a person—and an educated and articulate one at that—can examine England’s

injustice; a mere object doesn’t have the critical capacity to do so. This final question contributes

to the message Cowper wants to communicate, which is that enslaved people are as clever,

eloquent, and human as the readers of the poem.

In the poem “The Negro’s Complaint,” Cowper utilizes the first-person perspective of a

slave to question the practice of slavery and the dehumanization of slaves. The first-person voice

gives the slave ownership of his story and proves that the slave is a person who is capable of

emotions and rational thought. The poem thus not only interrogates the treatment of slaves but

also questions English society for allowing slavery to exist. By demonstrating that he is an

educated person with the ability to think and analyze his lack of rights in England, the slave in

the poem reclaims his humanity and simultaneously reveals who the real non-humans are: the

slave owners and slave traders who captured him in the first place.

Work Cited

Cowper, William. “The Negro’s Complaint”. 1788. The Norton Anthology of English Literature-

The Romantic Period. Vol. D, 9th Ed. 2012, pp. 96-97.