George Moses Horton: From slavery to a trailblazing African-American poet, by Gift Luckson George Moses Horton (c. 1798–1867), was an African-American poet from North Carolina who was enslaved until Union troops, carrying the Emancipation Proclamation, reached North Carolina (1865). Origin Horton is the first African-American author to be published in the United States. (Phillis Wheatley's poetry was published earlier, in the United Kingdom). He is the author of the first book of literature published in North Carolina and was known as the "Slave Poet". Horton was born into slavery on William Horton's plantation in about...