It is estimated that Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote "The African," an early work of juvenilia, between 1820 and 1822, when EBB was around 16 years old. The narrative poem, which tells the story of a runaway slave based on a story shared with her by her paternal cousin Richard Barrett, is the first and longest of EBB's anti-slavery poems and effectively reveals her early investment and participation in abolitionist discourse. Having never been published, "The African" exists only in manuscript form.  

First page of "The African" manuscript.