Mike Parker: First African American published poet bore name of slave ship
Phillis Wheatley’s name is probably better known by many high school students today than it was during my generation. Frankly, I never heard of Phillis Wheatley when I was cracking the books in my American literature class in 1967. I became familiar with a few of her poems as I constructed my syllabus for Major American Writers at East Carolina – at least two decades ago.
But the more I read about her life and investigated her work, the more impressed I became by the young woman who was torn from her homeland and sold into bondage. Wheatley was abducted from the Senegal-Gambia region of West Africa when she was about seven years old. Most biographers place the year of her birth in 1753.
She came to America aboard a slave ship named “Phillis.” Since she was too young to work as a slave in the southern colonies or in the West Indies, Wheatley ended up in Boston. The wealthy tailor John Wheatley purchased her to serve as an attendant to his wife.
I have never read what this young woman’s real name was. She was called Phillis after the slave ship that bore her to this country. She received her last name from the family that purchased her. Like nearly all slaves who found themselves in this country during the 18th century, her owners named her. “Phillis Wheatley” was truly a slave name.
Despite the belief common to the times that Africans were intellectually inferior to whites of European descendant, Wheatley displayed an acute intellect. Within 16 months of her arrival in this country, she could read passages from the Bible in English, she could read some Latin, and she was familiar with astronomy, British literature, geography and history. Please keep in mind that she was only seven when she arrived in the American colonies, so she made these achievements before she was nine years old.
At 17, her first published poem appeared: “A Poem, by Phillis, A Negro Girl in Boston, on the Death of the Reverend George Whitfield.” Whitfield, along with John and Charles Wesley, was a founder of Methodism. By the time Wheatley was 17, she had so absorbed the Christian gospel that the message of redemption through Christ fills many of her poems.
In fact, she viewed her abduction and enslavement as part of God’s providence to bring her to salvation. She wrote in “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” “Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, / Taught my benighted soul to understand / That there’s a God, that there’s a Savior too: / Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.”
In 1773, Wheatley visited London, where the Countess of Huntingdon received this American poetess. The 20-year-old wordsmith was scheduled to meet King George III, but she sailed back to America when she learned her mistress was sick.
She received her freedom in 1778 upon John Wheatley’s death. She was free, but impoverished. She married John Peters, a free black man, and the couple had three children.
Her husband was never financially stable, and the couple’s marriage was an unhappy one. Although Wheatley tried to support herself and her children as a seamstress and poet, her husband ended up placing her and her children in a poor house for blacks. She watched her children die from deprivation and disease. Wheatley died in 1784 at age 31.
Her poetic spirit still flourished despite her poverty, sickness, and discouragement. A collection of her poems, titled “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley” appeared in 1793, nearly a decade after her death. With the publication of this book, Wheatley became the first African American to publish a volume of literature.
To read some of her work, visit this website: Poems of Phillis Wheatley, 1753-1784 - AmblesideOnline - Charlotte Mason Curriculum. You will be both moved and impressed.
Mike Parker is a columnist for the Neuse News. You can reach him at mparker16@gmail.com.
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