Phillis Wheatley - Wikipedia

On October 18, 1775, African-American poet Phillis Wheatley was freed from slavery. From the article:

"Phillis Wheatley, also spelled Phyllis and Wheatly (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784) was the first published African-American female poet.[1][2] Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at the age of seven or eight and transported to North America. She was purchased by the Wheatley family of Boston, who taught her to read and write and encouraged her poetry when they saw her talent.

The publication of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral on 1 September 1773 brought her fame both in England and the American colonies. Figures such as George Washington praised her work.[3] During Wheatley's visit to England with her master's son, African-American poet Jupiter Hammon praised her work in his own poem. Wheatley was emancipated (set free) shortly after the publication of her book.[4] She married in about 1778. Two of her children died as infants. After her husband was imprisoned for debt in 1784, Wheatley fell into poverty and died of illness, quickly followed by the death of her surviving infant son.

Early life

Phillis Wheatley's church, Old South Meeting House[5]
Although the date and place of her birth are not documented, scholars believe that Phillis Wheatley was born in 1753 in West Africa, most likely in present-day Gambia or Senegal.[6] Wheatley was sold by a local chief to a visiting trader, who took her to Boston in the British colony of Massachusetts, on July 11, 1761,[7] on a ship called The Phillis.[8] It was owned by Timothy Fitch and captained by Peter Gwinn.[8]

On arrival she was re-sold to the wealthy Boston merchant and tailor John Wheatley, who bought the young girl as a servant for his wife Susanna. John and Susanna Wheatley named the young girl Phillis, after the ship that had brought her to America. She was given their last name of Wheatley, as was a common custom if any surname was used for slaves.

The Wheatleys' 18-year-old daughter, Mary, first tutored Phillis in reading and writing. Their son Nathaniel also helped her. John Wheatley was known as a progressive throughout New England; his family gave Phillis an unprecedented education for an enslaved person, and for a female of any race. By the age of 12, Phillis was reading Greek and Latin classics and difficult passages from the Bible. At the age of 14, she wrote her first poem, "To the University of Cambridge, in New England."[9][10] Recognizing her literary ability, the Wheatley family supported Phillis's education and left the household labor to their other domestic slaves. The Wheatleys often showed off her abilities to friends and family. Strongly influenced by her studies of the works of Alexander Pope, John Milton, Homer, Horace and Virgil, Phillis Wheatley began to write poetry.[11]

Later life
In 1773, at the age of 20, Phillis accompanied Nathaniel Wheatley to London in part for her health, but also because Susanna believed she would have a better chance publishing her book of poems there.[12] She had an audience with the Lord Mayor of London (an audience with George III was arranged, but Phillis returned home beforehand), as well as with other significant members of British society. Unfortunately, she was never able to personally meet Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, who served as the patron of Wheatley's volume of poems, which was published in the summer of 1773.[13]

Phillis Wheatley wrote a letter to Reverend Samson Occom, commending him on his ideas and beliefs of how the slaves should be given their natural born rights in America. Wheatley also exchanged letters with the British philanthropist John Thornton, who in turn discussed Wheatley and her poetry in his correspondence with John Newton.[14] Along with her poetry, she was able to express her thoughts, comments and concerns to others.[15] In 1775, Phillis Wheatley sent a copy of a poem entitled, "To His Excellency, George Washington" to him. In 1776, Washington invited Wheatley to visit him at his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which she did in March 1776.[16] Thomas Paine republished the poem in the Pennsylvania Gazette in April 1776.[17]

In 1773, sometime between July and October, Wheatley was emancipated by the Wheatley family shortly after her book, Poems on Subjects Religious and Moral, was published in London. Susanna Wheatley died in the spring of 1774. John Wheatley's death followed in 1778. Shortly after, Phillis Wheatley met and married John Peters, a free black grocer. They struggled with poor living conditions and the deaths of two babies.[18]

In 1779, Wheatley submitted a proposal for a second volume of poems, but was unable to publish it because of her financial circumstances, the loss of patrons after her emancipation (often publication of books was based on gaining subscriptions for guaranteed sales beforehand), and the Revolutionary War. However, some of her poems that were to be published in that volume were later published in pamphlets and newspapers.[19]

Her husband John Peters was improvident, and imprisoned for debt in 1784, leaving an impoverished Wheatley with a sickly infant son. She went to work as a scullery maid at a boarding house to support them, a kind of domestic labor that she had not been accustomed to, even before becoming a free person. Wheatley died on December 5, 1784, at the age of 31.[20]"