Some critics from later generations found Plato's essays and poetry to be overly moralizing as well as routine and lacking in originality. Many of them also derided her for not mentioning the issue of slavery in America, as did some of her near contemporaries including Frances Harper and Charlotte Forten Grimke. Plato's one reference to slavery in her book concerns its abolition in the West Indies in 1838 (perhaps a reference to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 valid throughout the British Empire). She does, however, emphasize the equality of people, regardless of race, a few times in the "Essays".