Famous Quotes | There a captive sat in...

There a captive sat in chains
Crooning ditties treasured well
From his Afric’s torrid plains.
Sole estate his sire bequeathed,—
Hapless sire to hapless son,—
Was the wailing song he breathed,
And his chain when life was done. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Attribution: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. “Address Delivered in Concord on the Anniversary of the Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies, August 1, 1884,” Miscellanies (1883, repr. 1903). We might regard this as Emerson’s homage to the origins of the blues.

Categories: Essayist, Philosopher, Slavery

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