Phillis Wheatley

In 1753, Phillis Wheatley was born a free person in the Gambia River Region of West Africa. Her life was turned upside down when she was captured, forced on a slave ship, and sold to a couple in Boston when she was about 8 years old.

Nine years earlier, John and Susannah Wheatley’s daughter passed away. Many historians believe they bought Phillis so she could fill some sort of surrogate daughter role in their lives. It just goes to show the cognitive dissonance surrounding slavery. They bought a child to replace the one they lost.

The Wheatleys encouraged Phillis to learn. It was at a time when many white colonists believed people of African descent were incapable of learning. Whether it was an experiment to them or not, the Wheatleys taught Phillis to read and write. Not only did she learn, but she did so at remarkable speed. Within 16 months, she had mastered the English language. She’d go on to learn Greek and Latin at a time when most colonists were illiterate.

She had arrived in America just after the Great Awakening had taken off. This was a religious movement that emphasized spiritual rebirth and conversion. One of the major figures of the movement, George Whitefield, was a huge inspiration to Phillis. She first heard him preach as a young girl and would go on to publish a poem about him in 1770, following his death:

“Hail, happy Saint, on thy immortal throne!

To thee complaints of grievance are unknown;

We hear no more the music of thy tongue.

Thy wonted auditories cease to throng.

Thy lessons in unequal’d accents flow’d!

While emulation in each bosom glow’d;

Thou didst, in strains of eloquence refin’d,

Inflame the soul, and captivate the mind.

His lonely Tabernacle, sees no more

A WHITEFIELD landing on the British shore

Then let us view him in yon azure skies: Let every mind with this lov’d object rise.

No more can he exert his lab’ring breath,

Seiz’d by the cruel messenger of death.

What can his dear AMERICA return?

But drop a tear upon his happy urn,

Thou tomb, shalt safe retain thy sacred trust

Till life divine re-animate his dust.”

The Wheatleys supported her talents and in 1773, they had a book of her poems published. At just 20 years old, she was the first enslaved person, the first African American, and only the third woman in the colonies to publish a book of poems. Soon after, the Wheatleys emancipated her.

In 1776 she published an open letter of support to George Washington. Here’s a short excerpt:

“Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev'ry action let the Goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! Be thine.”

Phillis saw the American Revolution as something that would bring great change, and hopefully change for her people. She encouraged Washington in the hopes that despite being a slaveowner himself, he would be a champion for liberty for all. Washington wrote her a very respectful reply, praising her literary skills, saying they were far better than his own, and signing it “I am your humble servant.” If Washington could see her humanity, could more whites be won over? She soon became a symbol of the anti-slavery movement, proof of the intellectual abilities of black people, and one of the most famous African Americans in the colonies.

This was a time when white colonists would compare enslaved people to horses and would debate if they could be considered human beings. Phillis’ poetry was a big slap in the face to this false racist ideology. Not everyone was moved, however. Thomas Jefferson, another slave-owning founding father, had this to say in 1785:

“Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. —Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phillis Wheatley; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.”

Jefferson was, of course, wrong. But it illustrates the kind of racist ideas that were common at the time.

Phillis Wheatley died at the young age of 31 on December 5, 1784. She left behind a legacy that would force people to look at the humanity of black people and would inspire generations of future African American poets ꩜