While reading Alice Walker’s “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens”, there were a list of names of back female authors and creators. It struck me that I did not recognize most of the names on the list, and it inspired me to do some further research. For example, Phillis Wheatley’s life story and accomplishments are fascinating to say the least.
Phillis Wheatley was stolen from Senegal/Gambia, West Africa when she was around seven years old and was shipped to Boston to be sold in the slave trade. She was purchased by the wife of a well-off Boston tailor, John Wheatley. In the Wheatley household Phillis gained an education that covered a number of topics and areas of study, including reading and writing. One of her publish poems, An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield … (1770) earned her international attention when it was published as a broadside and a pamphlet in Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia, and was published with Ebenezer Pemberton’s funeral sermon for Whitefield in London in 1771. When she had trouble being published in America she sent her work (a collection of 28 poems) to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, who was a supported of abolitionist writings. the countess had bookseller Archibald Bell begin correspondence with Wheatley in preparation for a book to be published. Phillis travelled to London in 1771 (fighting severe chronic asthma) and was welcomed by many prominent figures. including Benjamin Franklin. Soon Bell was circulating the first edition of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), the first volume of poetry by an American Negro published in modern times. This work demonstrates her skill and education, including translations from Ovid and uses biblical techniques to comment on slavery and the conditions of African Americans (for example in her best known poem, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” she reminds her audience that black people are and should be included in the Christian community). She also speaks about America in a celebratory nature.
Phillis had a curious position in society. In the Wheatley household her position as a servant was clear and she was not directly apart of the social or intellectual scene the Wheatley’s partook in. However, they did future her existing brilliance and gave her the education she needed to produce such skillful and influential works. She also didn’t experience the brutal and heavily laborious aspects of slavery that millions of others did. Phillis was freed in 1774 and married John Peters, a free black entrepreneur and intellectual, in 1778. Shortly after the marriage the couple moved to Boston and Phillis continued to write despite the economic depression and her own declining health and state of poverty. She died in 1784 “uncared for and alone”.
Phillis used her main influence, the evangelical church and Christianity, to make statements about slavery, even though some critics didn’t recognize her intentions. Her international fame, beautiful and poignant poetry and sheer number of accomplishments is incredible and inspiring to all and stands as a testament to the excellence that can arise when female black creators are able to thrive and express themselves.
*Note: ALL information on Phillis Wheatley in this post was taken from the Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/phillis-wheatley