Anna Maria Vassa

I'd never heard of Anna Maria Vassa before today: daughter of Olaudah Equiano (whose elsaved name was Gustavus Vassa) and a Cambridgeshire woman, Susannah Cullen, from Fordham; who, born 16 October 1793, was orphaned very young (her mother died on February 21st 1796; her father on 31 March 1797), and she herself died on 21st July the same year (her younger sister Joanna survived).  Anna Maria is buried somewhere nearby: this memorial plaque in on the wall of St Andrew's Church in Chesterton, and reads

Near this Place Lies Interred

Anna Maria Vassa

Daughter of Gustavus Vassa, the African

She Died July 21 1797

Aged 4 Years

Should simple village rhymes attract thine eye,

Stranger, as thoughtfully thou passest by,

Know that there lies beside this humble stone

A child of colour haply not thine own.

Her father born of Afric’s sun-burnt race,

Torn from his native field, ah foul disgrace:

Through various toils, at length to Britain came

Espoused, so Heaven ordain’d, an English dame,

And follow’d Christ; their hope two infants dear.

But one, a hapless orphan, slumbers here.

To bury her the village children came.

And dropp’d choice flowers, and lisp’d her early fame;

And some that lov’d her most, as if unblest,

Bedew’d with tears the white wreath on their breast;

But she is gone and dwells in that abode,

Where some of every clime shall joy in God.

The Sunday nearest her death is known as "Vassa Day," and local children lay flowers by her memorial stone. 

It's a very peaceful graveyard to rest in, even on another very grey day.