First published in the abolitionist gift book The Liberty Bell in Boston in 1848. Gift books were rather like nineteenth-century coffee-table books, beautifully bound and often lavishly illustrated. Some were used for philanthropic purposes. The Liberty Bell raised funds for the campaign to abolish slavery in the U.S. as well as illustrating the evils of slavery.
Many Victorian women were involved in the fight against slavery, first in the British abolitionist movement and then, as with Barrett Browning, through connections with feminist abolitionists in the United States until after the Civil War. The analogy between the position of women and slaves was invoked very widely in Victorian culture, particularly with reference to the middle-class marriage market; it was also frequently mobilised by Victorian feminists in their own bids for political voice.
As you read the poem, consider the implications of this dramatic monologue written by a white British woman in the voice of a black slave in the United States.