Introducing Phyllis Wheatley

Phyllis Wheatley
(~1753-1784)

Phyllis (sometimes spelled Phillis) Wheatley (sometimes spelled Wheatly) is generally considered America's first African-American author of a book of poetry.  She was born in West Africa around the year 1753, and kidnapped and sold (by a local chief) into slavery when she was seven or eight years old.  She was taken to North America by slave traders and sold to John Wheatley, a wealthy Boston merchant.  He bought the girl to be a house slave for his wife Susanna, who named her Phillis/Phyllis after the slave ship that brought her across the ocean.  They gave her their last name, which was customary for slaves.

Mary and Nathaniel Wheatley, the family's teen daughter and son, taught Phyllis to read and write (historical note: it wasn't always illegal during US history to teach slaves to read and write -- that was only a law in specific places during the mid-1800s).  John Wheatley was well known as a progressive-thinking man who tried to help his slaves better themselves -- and not only his male slaves, but the female ones too!  In fact, Phyllis learned not only to read and write English, but also Greek and Latin.  She received a far better education than many free boys and girls.

The family discovered Phyllis had a talent for writing poetry, and they encouraged her to pursue this.  As she became a more accomplished poet, they gradually stopped having her do other work so she would have more time to learn and write.

Some people refused to believe that a former slave could have written beautiful poetry.  Phyllis Wheatley actually had to go to court in 1772 to defend her statements claiming to have written her own poems.  Although the court ruled that she was obviously the author of her poems, every publisher in Boston refused to publish her book of poems.  So, John and Susanna paid for Phyllis to travel all the way to England with their son Nathaniel to try having her poetry book published there.  Phyllis met with several famous and influential writers and critics there, and her poems were published in London in 1773.  The Wheatley family granted Phyllis her freedom soon after that.  She continued to live with the Wheatley family until after Susanna and John both died.  Then Phyllis marred a grocer named John Peters.

Sadly, John Peters was not good with money, and he was thrown into prison for debt in 1784.  Phyllis had to support herself and their young child, so she took a job as a scullery maid.  She had suffered from asthma all her life, and she contracted pneumonia while working in a damp kitchen and died when she was only 31, shortly after giving birth to a baby girl, who died the same day as Phyllis.

The Wheatley family also taught her Phyllis about the God of the Bible, and she became a Christian.  Many of her poems have deep Christian themes.  Others are patriotic -- she wrote a poem called "To His Excellency, George Washington" in 1775.  General Washington liked it so much, he invited her to visit him at his military headquarters.  We have fifty-five of her poems still in existence today, and twenty of them are elegies, which are poems that speak about death -- Phyllis uses hers to comfort people with reminders of eternal life in heaven.

Although she died young and poor, Phyllis Wheatley was actually fairly famous during her lifetime.  Voltaire, a very famous French writer in that era, was a fan of her poetry.  American naval hero John Paul Jones sent her some of his favorite poems that he thought she might enjoy.  John Newton (the guy who wrote "Amazing Grace") discussed her poetry in letters with his friends.  Her poetry can feel very old-fashioned and stylized to us, but it was considered exciting and fresh when she was writing it.