Francis Williams (poet)

Portrait of Francis Williams, artist unknown, oil on canvas, circa 1745

Francis Williams (1700—1771) was a scholar and poet born in Kingston, Jamaica.

Biography

Francis Williams was born around 1700 to John and Dorothy Williams, a free black couple in Jamaica. John Williams had been freed by the will of his former master and within 10 years was able to acquire property. As free blacks the Williams family were increasingly in the minority as Jamaica's sugar industry, which relied on the labour of enslaved Africans, grew over the course of the 18th century. Even less common were educated black people. However, John Williams' independent wealth ensured that Francis and his brothers received an education. For Francis this meant travel to Western Europe where he is recorded in 1721.^[1]

A story later evolved suggesting that Francis was the subject of a social experiment devised by the Duke of Montagu who wished to show that black individuals – with the right education – could match the intellectual achievements of whites. The Duke is reported to have sponsored Francis to travel to England to undertake an English education at a grammar school and then at Cambridge University. However, Francis does not appear in the university's records and his family's wealth would have probably made the Duke's support unnecessary.^[2]

Poetry

An Ode to George Haldane (an excerpt)

See also

• Ignatius Sancho, another protégé of the Montagu family
• Phillis Wheatley, another early Black poet writing in English contemporaneously

References

External links

• Williams, Francis. "Carmen, or, An Ode", in Thomas W. Krise, Caribbeana: An Anthology of English Literature, 1657-1777, The University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 315–317. ISBN 978-0226453927
• Mathematicians of the African Diaspora, State University of New York at Buffalo.
• "Francis Williams, the Scholar of Jamaica". Victoria and Albert Museum.