his "beloved Molly," and in view of the old
meeting-house, there is a mound of earth, where, every spring, green
grasses tremble in the wind and the warm sunshine calls out the flowers.
There, gathered like one of his own ripe sheaves, the farmer poet sleeps
with his fathers.

PLACIDO, THE SLAVE POET. (1845.)

I have been greatly interested in the fate of Juan Placido, the black
revolutionist of Cuba, who was executed in Havana, as the alleged
instigator and leader of an attempted revolt on the part of the slaves in
that city and its neighborhood.

Juan Placido was born a slave on the estate of Don Terribio de Castro.
His father was an African, his mother a mulatto. His mistress treated
him with great kindness, and taught him to read. When he was twelve
years of age she died, and he fell into other and less compassionate
hands. At the age of eighteen, on seeing his mother struck with a heavy
whip, he for the first time turned upon his tormentors. To use his own
words, "I felt the blow in my heart. To utter a loud cry, and from a
downcast boy, with the timidity of one weak as a lamb, to become all at
office like a raging lion, was a thing of a moment." He was, however,
subdued, and the next morning, together with his mother, a tenderly
nurtured and delicate woman, severely scourged. On seeing his mother
rudely stripped and thrown down upon the ground, he at first with tears
implored the overseer to spare her; but at the sound of the first blow,
as it cut into her naked flesh, he sprang once more upon the ruffian,
who, having superior strength, beat him until he was nearer dead than
alive.

After suffering all the vicissitudes of slavery,--hunger, nakedness,
stripes; after bravely and nobly bearing up against that slow, dreadful
process which reduces the man to a thing, the image of God to a piece of
merchandise, until he had reached his thirty-eighth year, he was
unexpectedly released from his bonds. Some literary gentlemen in Havana,
into whose hands two or three pieces of his composition had fallen,
struck with the vigor, spirit, and natural grace which they manifested,
sought out the author, and raised a subscription to purchase his freedom.
He came to Havana, and maintained himself by house-painting, and such
other employments as his ingenuity and talents placed within his reach.
He wrote several poems, which have been published in Spanish at Havana,
and translated by Dr. Madden, under the title of