Phillis Wheatley was a dynamic poet and author who lived a tragic life of oppression and slavery in the American colonies. Though shackled in many aspects of her life, Wheatley accomplished a monumental amount of writing. In this post, we examine Phillis Wheatley through a biography of the first Black poet in the United States.
Biography
Capture and slavery
Before being Phillis Wheatley, historians are unsure of what her name was. She was born in West Africa around 1753 in what would eventually become Senegal or Gambia. Due to her missing front teeth, researchers believed slavers her kidnapped at the age of seven. The same men then sent her to America on a 240-day trip aboard the slave ship “Phillis.” Wheatley had a frailty about her, and so found herself under refugee status in the slave trade. The captain of the slave ship sold Wheatley to Susanna Wheatley, wife of Boston tailor John Wheatley.
As reported, the captain “believed the waif was terminally ill, and he wanted to gain at least a small profit before she died.” Afterward, the couple named her “Phillis” after the ship that brought her to port.
Early Education
In their eyes, they raised her “above her station,” and taught her religion. The church baptized her in August of 1771. Phillis gravitated toward her studies and after learning the English language, she studied Greek, Latin, astronomy, and more. Wheatly began studying poetry at the age of 12 and a year later wrote “On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin,” which she published in Dec. of 1767. At 18 years old, Wheatley had 28 poems to her name.
Though an attempt to gain subscribers for her poetry failed due to racist attitudes in the colonies, the Wheatley’s saw to the publication of the 38-poem verse book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in Boston, MA, in 1773. In London, Wheatley’s work was celebrated among the abolitionists. While Thomas Jefferson dismissed her work as “below the dignity of criticism,” others, such as Voltaire and George Washington, lauded her work.
Writing and Freedom
She later returned to Boston and was set free due to the assistance of the abolitionists she befriended in England. However, as in any Phillis Wheatley biography, the taste of freedom washed away with the reality of life in America as a freed slave. She married, lost three children in infancy, and was abandoned by her husband. Afterward, she had to take up work as a maid and servant. She also failed to publish more than five poems in the remainder of her life.
Wheatley died in Boston on Dec. 5, 1784. She was in her early 30s.
Conclusion
In her time, Wheatley published her work as the first Black American. She also helped abolitionists argue against the inferiority of Blacks by citing Wheatley’s poetry. As others have stated, her “canon consists of fifty-five poems, twenty-two letters and a prose prayer …” However, there are “titles for dozens more poems that so far have not come to light.” Wheatley may have led a tragic life in a racially oppressive society, but her legacy lives on as a testament to Black American creativity and endurance.
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