Phillis Wheatley

Poet / Slave

Phillis Wheatley was an African slave in Boston, Massachusetts when she became the first published black poet in America in 1767. Wheatley came to the Boston slave market in 1761 (some have guessed from Senegal) and was purchased by John Wheatley for his wife, Susannah. Named Phillis and given her master's surname, it was estimated she was between 7 and 8 years old. She quickly mastered English and the Wheatleys saw to it that she learned literature, mythology, Latin and Greek. By the time she was 13 she was writing her own poems, influenced especially by the poetry of Alexander Pope and John Milton. She published locally in 1767 and was considered a prodigy among the Boston literati, thanks to her "lively" personality as well as her sophisticated verse. While on a visit to England in 1773 she was dubbed "the sable muse," and her first collection, Poems on Various Subjects, was published. Her mature handling of the neoclassical style, with its Biblical and Homeric touches, was such that the book came with sworn assurances that this teenage African girl had, in fact, written the poems. After Susannah Wheatley died Phillis was freed; she married John Peters in 1778 and spent the rest of her life in poverty and obscurity, dying at the age of 31. Two books of her writings were published posthumously: The Memoirs and Poems of Phillis Wheatley (1834) and The Letters of Phillis Wheatley (1864). Although her place as a historical figure is secure, as a poet she engenders scholarly debate to this day, her heritage and sex complicating the question of her artistic merit.

Extra credit: In 1775 Wheatley corresponded with General George Washington... In November of 2005 a newly discovered letter by Wheatley was acquired by a private collector for a reported $253,000.

Wheatley joins Alice Walker, Matthew Henson and Marian Anderson in our loop celebrating Black History Month.