Phillis Wheatley

           

            Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa in 1753 and was kidnapped and forced into slavery by the age of 7. John Wheatley and his family bought Phillis and brought her over to Boston in 1761, knowing she was gifted and intelligent. Phillis lived in the Wheatley house even though there was a salve hut in the backyard and was treated as one of the Wheatley children. She was tutored by the Wheatley's daughter Mary in English, Latin, history, geography, religion, and the Bible in particular In June of 1773, Phillis went to London with one of the Wheatley's sons to publish one of her poems. While she was there, Phillis met Benjamin Franklin who was a fan of her work. During her trip to London, no one believed that Phillis wrote the poems and she had to go into a room with eighteen educated men and convince them that she wrote it. These eighteen men weren't convinced at first because Phillis was a young woman, a slave, and had an education that wasn't common for slave. The poem eventually got published and the eighteen men had to sign and verify that Phillis wrote it. In the fall of 1773, Phillis received manumission for Susannah who eventually died. Wheatley was emancipated, but wasn't freed until the death of John Wheatley in 1778. Phillis married John Peters in 1778 who was thrown into jail for debt. At this time Phillis would do anything for income. John and Phillis had three kids together, two of which died at infancy, and one who died three and a half hours after Phillis died on her death bed. Phillis Wheatley's most famous poem was on the death of Reverend George Whitefield, the English evangelist who frequently toured New England. She is the first African-American poet and the first African-American women to publish a book.

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. A. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2012. Print.

"The Massachusetts Historical Society." The Massachusetts Historical Society. N.p., 2012. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. <https://www.masshist.org/endofslavery/index.cfm?queryID=57>.


-Catherine Luberda