Explore "The Slave Girl's Farewell" by Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The incident which suggested the following lines is this: -- A young girl was living with her mother in one of the West Indian Islands, quite unconscious of her being a slave. Her master, on leaving the Island for a permanent residence in Louisiana, cruelly separated the girl from her parent forever.
Mother, I leave thee -- thou hast been, / Through long, long years of pain, / The only hope my fond heart knew; / Or e'er shall know again.