Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley. She was the first African American author of a published book of poetry and a seminal figure in the history of American literature. Enslaved as a child and brought to British America, her literary talent was recognized and nurtured by her owners, the Wheatley family of Boston. Her work, deeply influenced by Neoclassicism and Christianity, challenged prevailing racist attitudes about intellectual capacity and became a powerful symbol for the abolitionist movement.

Early life and enslavement

Believed to have been born around 1753 in West Africa, she was kidnapped and transported across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the slave ship *Phillis*. In 1761, she was purchased in Boston by the wealthy merchant John Wheatley as a domestic servant for his wife, Susanna Wheatley. The Wheatley family, notably their daughter Mary Wheatley, recognized her intelligence and provided her with an unprecedented education, teaching her to read and write in English and instructing her in Latin, Greek, classical mythology, and the Bible. This exceptional tutelage, rare for any woman and extraordinary for an enslaved person, occurred amidst the growing political tensions in the Thirteen Colonies leading to the American Revolution.

Literary career and poetry

She began writing poetry around 1765, with her first published poem, "On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin," appearing in 1767 in the Newport Mercury. Her early work quickly gained attention in New England and Great Britain for its technical proficiency and pious themes. Her poems often employed the formal style of Alexander Pope and other Augustan poets, addressing subjects like salvation, morality, and contemporary events. Notable early works include "On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield" (1770), an elegy for the famous evangelical preacher that was widely reprinted, and "To the University of Cambridge, in New-England," which directly addressed students at Harvard College. Her verse frequently engaged with the political and philosophical currents of her time, including the Patriot cause and the inherent contradiction of slavery in a land fighting for liberty.

Publication of Poems on Various Subjects

Despite her growing reputation, publishers in the Thirteen Colonies were skeptical that an enslaved Black woman could produce such sophisticated work. To secure publication, she was examined in 1772 by a panel of eighteen prominent men from Boston, including John Hancock, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, and the Reverend Samuel Mather. This group, later satirized as the "Court of the Muses," attested to her authorship in a published preface. With the support of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, her collection was published in London in 1773 by the firm Archibald Bell. The book, titled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was dedicated to the Countess and featured a frontispiece portrait of the author by the engraver Scipio Moorhead. The publication made her an international literary sensation, leading to an audience with the Lord Mayor of London and significant attention from British abolitionists like Granville Sharp.

Later life and death

Following the deaths of Susanna Wheatley and John Wheatley, she was granted her freedom in 1775. The American Revolutionary War disrupted her literary career and the market for poetry. In 1778, she married John Peters, a free Black grocer, and the couple faced persistent poverty and the deaths of two infants. She continued to write, attempting to secure patrons and publish a second volume of poems and letters, but was unsuccessful. To support herself, she worked in a boarding house in a poor neighborhood of Boston. She died in poverty on December 5, 1784, at the age of about 31, and was buried in an unmarked grave. Her third child died shortly after her death.

Legacy and influence

Her life and work have had a profound and lasting impact. During the 19th century, her poetry was cited by prominent abolitionists including Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison as irrefutable evidence of Black intellectual equality. In the 20th century, her legacy was reevaluated by scholars of the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement, with figures like Alice Walker and June Jordan engaging critically with her complex position. Modern literary criticism continues to analyze her sophisticated use of classical allusion and Christian theology to critique the institution of slavery. Major institutions like the Library of Congress and the Massachusetts Historical Society hold her manuscripts, and she is commemorated on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. Her portrait by Scipio Moorhead remains one of the earliest known depictions of an African American poet.

Category:1750s births Category:1784 deaths Category:African-American poets Category:American slaves Category:18th-century American poets Category:People from Boston Category:Writers from Massachusetts