Phillis Wheatley (l. c. 1753-1784) was the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry and become recognized as a poet, overcoming the prevailing understanding of the time that a Black person was incapable of writing, much less writing poetry and, further, that an enslaved person, considered property, could do so.
She was not, as commonly claimed, the first African American author to publish poetry, as that distinction goes to Jupiter Hammon (l. 1711-1806), who published his An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries in 1761. Wheatley, however, holds the honor of being the first African American author to publish a full-length book of poetry, her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773.
Her book was widely praised both in England (where it was published) and in Britain's North American colonies. She received a personal response from General George Washington (l. 1732-1799) thanking her for a poem she had written in his honor in 1775, which was later published by Thomas Paine (l. 1737-1809) in the Pennsylvania Gazette.
Not everyone was a fan of Wheatley's works, however, and some, most notably Thomas Jefferson (l. 1743-1826), dismissed her as simply a mimic who was only capable of reflecting concepts she had absorbed from White classical writers. The backward views of Jefferson, and those like him, did nothing to diminish popular appreciation for Wheatley's work, however, and she remained highly regarded, even after falling on hard times, until her death at the age of 31.
Today, Phillis Wheatley is regarded as one of the greatest American poets and continues to be honored as such through place names, memorials, plaques, and educational institutions.
Life & Work
Wheatley's brief biography, as given by L. Maria Child and included in Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction (1926), compiled and edited by Hallie Q. Brown, is given below, although some details are omitted, which will be addressed here.
Phillis Wheatley's actual name is unknown. She is thought to have been born c. 1753 in modern-day Gambia or Senegal and was one of the over three million people of those regions sold into slavery. She arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, aboard the slave ship Phillis in July 1761 and was purchased by John Wheatley, a wealthy merchant, and his wife Susanna. The Wheatleys named her after the ship that had brought her to them.
The Wheatleys had two children, twins, Mary and Nathaniel, who were then 18 years old. Mary taught young Phillis English and how to read and write, while Nathaniel assisted as his duties would allow. Phillis was a fast learner, and by the age of 12, was proficient in Greek, Latin, and the Bible. She wrote her first poem when she was 14, and, that same year, published another poem, on the near wreck of a merchant ship caught in a storm, in The Newport Mercury on 21 December 1767.
Although a slave, Phillis was treated like a member of the family and given light domestic work. The Wheatleys were progressive members of Boston society and, recognizing the girl's innate intelligence and quick wit, encouraged her education. She would frequently be invited to dinner parties given at the home to read her latest works, which were met with praise and gave her the confidence to write more.
By 1773, Phillis had a book-length manuscript of verse, and Susanna sent her to London, accompanied by Nathaniel, who was traveling there on family business, because she felt there were better chances of finding a publisher there than in the Colony of Massachusetts. Phillis had also been told by the family's doctor that she should avail herself of a sea voyage for her health as she suffered from asthma and a frail constitution.
Through Nathaniel's connections, Phillis was introduced to the members of high society in London, including the Lord Mayor, Frederick Bull. News of the young African poet circulated quickly, and Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, agreed to be her patron without ever having even met her. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published 1 September 1773.
An audience was arranged with King George III of Great Britain (r. 1760-1820), but news arrived that Susanna Wheatley was seriously ill, and Phillis and Nathaniel left for Boston before she could be presented to the king. Upon her arrival home, the Wheatleys set her free, and she cared for Susanna during her illness until her death in the spring of 1774. John died in 1778, and Mary soon after. Nathaniel moved to London to manage the business there, and Phillis was left alone in Boston.
She found work as a domestic before meeting the free Black grocer, John Peters, whom she married. The couple lived in poverty, and their two children died in infancy. Peters' business failed, and when he could not pay his debts, he was sent to prison in 1784.
Phillis was left alone again, this time with a third infant child, and found work as a scullery maid. Never very robust, Wheatley developed pneumonia and died on 5 December 1784, along with her infant daughter.
Poems & Criticism
Wheatley's poetry is informed by the great poets of the classical world, including Homer, Virgil, and Terence, as well as later poets, including Alexander Pope. Although she only published one book of poetry, she wrote and published many poems, before and after Poems on Various Subjects. Following the Boston Massacre of 5 March 1770, Wheatley wrote On the Affray in King Street, on the Evening of the 5th of March:
With Fire enwrapt, surcharg'd with sudden Death,
Lo, the pois'd Tube convolves its fatal breath!
The flying Ball with heaven-directed Force,
Rids the spirit of its fallen corse.
Well sated Shades! Let no unwomanly Tear
From Pity's Eye, disdain in your honour'd Bier;
Lost to their View, surviving Friends may mourn,
Yet on thy Pile shall Flames celestial burn;
Long as in Freedom's Cause the wise contend,
Dear to your unity shall Fame extend;
While to the World, the letter'd Stone shall tell,
How Caldwell, Attucks, Gray, and Mav'rick fell…
(Waldstreicher, 355)
Wheatley supported the American Revolution (1765-1789), as evidenced by the poem she wrote to Washington as well as others, including the above, which was published in the Boston Evening Post on 12 March 1770.
Although it had been well-established that Phillis Wheatley was the author of the poetry published under her name, White critics of the time refused to believe an enslaved Black woman could produce such verse. In 1772, Wheatley appeared in court to defend herself against accusations of plagiarism. After the court was satisfied she was, in fact, the author of her works, an attestation was signed and included in the preface to Poems on Various Subjects to legitimize it.
Later criticism of Wheatley's work focuses on how it fails to address the institution of slavery, but this claim is untenable. Wheatley was in no position to overtly condemn slavery in the 18th century, but consistently emphasizes the concept of freedom and liberation and, in her Reply to the Constitution, quite clearly challenges slaveholders in lines like, “Does colour constitute the slave?” (Waldstreicher, 369). Wheatley, contrary to the criticism, repeatedly condemns slavery, but, like any great artist, relies on the intelligence of her audience to understand her art and interpret it correctly.
Text
The following brief biography of Wheatley comes from Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction (1926), compiled and edited by Hallie Q. Brown as given on the site Documenting the South.
In the year 1761, a little slave girl about seven years old, stood in the marketplace in Boston, Massachusetts, with a number of others to be sold as chattel.
The little girl had been brought from far off Africa. She stood a pitiful looking object with no clothing save a piece of dirty, ragged carpet tied around her. Mrs. John Wheatley had several slaves, but they were growing too old to be active and she wished to purchase a young girl, whom she could train up in such a manner as to make a good domestic.
For this purpose, she went to the slave market and there she saw the little girl who appeared to be in ill health, which no doubt was due to the suffering she endured in the slave-ship on the long voyage. Mrs. Wheatley was a kind, religious woman and though she considered the sickly look of the child an objection, there was something so gentle and modest in the expression of her dark countenance and her large mournful eyes that her heart was drawn toward her, and she bought her in preference to several others who looked more robust.
She took her home in her chaise, gave her a bath and dressed her in clean clothes. They could not at first understand her and she resorted to signs and gestures for she spoke only her native African dialect and a few words of broken English. Mrs. Wheatley gave her the name of Phillis Wheatley, little dreaming that it, and the little slave girl she had rescued, would become renowned in American history.
Phillis soon learned to speak English, but she could tell nothing of herself nor when she was torn from her parents by the slave-traders, nor where she had been since that time. The poor, little orphan had gone through so much suffering and terror that her mind had become bewildered concerning the past.
The only thing that clung to her about Africa was seeing her mother pour out water before the rising sun which would indicate that the mother descended from some remote tribe of sunworshippers. And that sight of her mother doing reverence before the great luminous orb coming as it did out of the nowhere, but giving light and cheer to the world, naturally impressed the child's imagination so deeply that she remembered it when all else was forgotten about her native land.
In the course of a year and a half, a wonderful change took place in the little, forlorn stranger. She not only learned to speak English correctly but was able to read fluently in any part of the Bible. She possessed uncommon intelligence and a great desire for knowledge. She was often found trying to make letters with charcoal on the walls and fences. Mrs. Wheatley's daughter became her teacher. She found this an easy task for the pupil learned with astonishing quickness.
At the same time, she showed such an amiable, affectionate disposition that all members of the family became much attached to her. Her gratitude to her motherly benefactress was unbounded and her greatest delight was to do anything to please her.
At the age of fourteen she began to write poetry. Owing to such uncommon manifestations of intelligence, she was never put to hard household work. She became the companion of Mrs. Wheatley and her daughter. Her poetry attracted attention and friends of Mrs. Wheatley lent her books which she read with great eagerness. She soon acquired a good knowledge of geography, history, and English poetry. After a while she learned Latin which she so far mastered as to be able to read it understandingly.
There was no law in Massachusetts against slaves learning to read and write and Mrs. Wheatley did everything to encourage her love of learning. She always called her affectionately "My Phillis" and seemed to be as proud of her attainments as if she had been her own daughter.
Phillis was very religious and at the age of sixteen joined the Orthodox Church that worshipped in the Old-South Meeting-house in Boston. Her character and deportment were such that she was considered an ornament to the church. Clergymen and other literary persons who visited Mrs. Wheatley's home took a great deal of notice of her. Her poems were brought forward to be read by the company and were often praised.
She was often invited to the homes of wealthy and distinguished people, but she was not turned by so much flattery and attention. Seriousness and humility were natural to Phillis, and she retained the same gentle, modest deportment that had won Mrs. Wheatley's heart when she first saw her in the marketplace.
Although tenderly cared for and not required to do any fatiguing work, her constitution never recovered from the shock it had received in early childhood. At the age of nineteen her health failed so rapidly that physicians said it was necessary for her to take a sea-voyage.
A son of Mrs. Wheatley was going to England on commercial business and his mother proposed that Phillis should go with him. In England she received even more attention than had been bestowed upon her at home. Several of the nobility invited her to their houses and her poems were published in a volume with an engraved likeness of the author.
Still, the young poet was not spoiled by flattery. A relative of Mrs. Wheatley remarked that not all the attention she received, nor all the honors that men heaped upon her had the slightest influence upon her temper and deportment. She was the same simple-hearted, unsophisticated being. She addressed a poem to the Earl of Dartmouth who was very kind to her during her visit to England. Having expressed a hope for the over-throw of tyranny she says:
"Should you, my Lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,–
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate,
Was snatched from Afric's fancied happy state.
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labor in my parent's breast!
Steeled was that soul, and by no misery moved,
That from a father seized his babe beloved.
Such was my case; and can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway."King George, the third, was soon expected in London and the English friends of Phillis wished to present her to their King; but letters from America informed her of the declining health of her beloved Mrs. Wheatley and she greatly desired to see her. No honors could divert her mind from the friend of her childhood. She returned to Boston immediately.
The good lady died soon after. Mr. Wheatley soon followed and the daughter, the kind teacher of her youth, did not long survive. The son married and settled in England. For a short time, Phillis remained with a friend of Mrs. Wheatley, then she rented a room and lived by herself. It was a sad change for her.
The war of the American Revolution broke out. In the Autumn of 1776, General Washington had his headquarters at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The spirit of the occasion moved Phillis to address some complimentary verses to him. In reply, he sent her the following courteous note:
"I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me in the elegant lines you enclosed. However undeserving I may be of such encomium; the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents. In honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem, had I not been apprehensive that, while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing else, determined me not to give it a place in the public prints.
"If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the Muses, and to whom Nature had been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations.
"I am, with great respect,
"Your obedient, humble servant,"GEORGE WASHINGTON."
The early friends of Phillis were dead or scattered abroad and she felt alone in the world. About this time, she formed the acquaintance of a colored man by the name of Peters who kept a grocery store. He was very intelligent, spoke fluently, wrote easily, dressed well and was handsome in appearance. He proposed marriage and, in an evil hour, she accepted him.
He proved to be lazy, proud, and high-tempered. He neglected his business, failed, and became very poor. Though unwilling to do hard work himself, he wanted to make a drudge of his wife. She was unaccustomed to hardships; her constitution was frail, and she was the mother of three little children with no one to help her in household labors and cares.
He had no pity on her and increased her burdens by his ill temper. The little ones sickened and died, and their gentle mother was completely broken down, by sorrow and toil. Some of the descendants of her lamented benefactress heard of her illness. They found her in a forlorn situation, suffering for the common comforts of life.
The Revolutionary War was still raging. Everybody was mourning sons and husbands slain in battle. Currency was deranged and the country was poor. The people were too anxious and troubled to think of the African poet whom they once delighted to honor.
And so it happened that the gifted woman who had been patronized by wealthy Bostonians and who had rolled through London in the splendid carriages of the English nobility, lay dying alone in a cold, dirty, comfortless room. It was a mournful reverse of fortune; but she was patient and resigned. She made no complaint of her unfeeling husband.
The friends and descendants of Mrs. Wheatley did all they could to relieve her destitute condition but, fortunately for her, she soon went "Where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."
Her husband was so generally disliked that she was never called Mrs. Peters but went by the name bestowed upon her by her benefactress and by which she will be known to all posterity, the name of PHILLIS WHEATLEY.
