Wheatley, Phillis (c. 1752–1784)

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Wheatley, Phillis (c. 1752–1784)

Leading American poet of the Revolutionary era and the first African-American of either gender to publish a book . Name variations: Phillis Peters. Pronunciation: WEET-lee. Born around 1752 in Gambia, West Africa; died of complications associated with childbirth in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 5, 1784; daughter of unknown parents; renamed Phillis by master John Wheatley after enslavement in 1761; tutored during childhood in the Wheatley household by family members; married John Peters, in April 1778; children: three (all died in infancy).

Captured by slavers in West Africa (1761), and transported to Boston; purchased by merchant tailor John Wheatley; published first poem in the Newport Mercury (December 21, 1767); published first notable poem, "On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George White-field" (1770); only collection, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, first printed in London (1773); traveled to England as a literary celebrity (summer 1773); wrote notable poem commemorating George Washington's appointment as commander of Continental Army (1775); John Wheatley died (1778), leaving Phillis without a home; unable to publish second volume of poems during married years (1778–84).

In 1761, slave traders shattered the life of a seven or eight-year-old young girl. Uprooted from her home near the Gambia River in West Africa, she was placed aboard a slave ship bound for the Americas. This child, whose birth name has been lost to history, was one of 10 to 24 million Africans transported against their will to the "New World" between the early 1500s and the mid-1800s. Purchased by merchant tailor John Wheatley in Boston, the Fulani girl was taken into his household as a domestic servant. Renamed Phillis, she learned to communicate in English with amazing ease. Before she was 20 years old, this remarkable poet would become the first black American to author a published book.

At the time the Wheatleys purchased Phillis, Boston was the largest city in British North America with around 17,000 inhabitants. This included about 1,000 blacks, slightly more than half of whom were slaves. Most wealthy elites owned one or two house servants; the Wheatley household was one of very few that contained more than two. Compared to most slaves, Phillis experienced a privileged childhood in the Wheatley home. She had her own room, took meals with the family, and was held responsible for only light domestic chores. The other two or three family slaves, who were all adults, failed to receive similar treatment. Susanna Wheatley , her mistress, ultimately came to nurture Phillis as if she were a daughter. Nathaniel and Mary , twins who were about 18 years old when the young slave arrived in their parents' Boston home, served as her tutors. "Without any assistance from school education," John Wheatley reported, "and by only what she was taught in the family, she, in sixteen months time from her arrival, attained the English language … to such a degree as to read any of the most difficult parts of the sacred writings."

The education Phillis received under the direction of the Wheatley family was typical of that afforded male children of urban elites of the era. The daughters of even the most aristocratic families rarely enjoyed access to the knowledge and training that helped shape the attitudes, intellect, and art of Phillis Wheatley. An extensive education was considered unnecessary, if not dangerous, for women. The fact that she was also an African-American slave rendered this opportunity even more extraordinary. Very few Americans of the late colonial period questioned

the prevailing notions of African inferiority. They believed simply that blacks could not be educated. But the Wheatleys proved willing to challenge this view because of their evangelical religious beliefs and early recognition of the natural intellectual gifts of the young girl.

Susanna Wheatley, the family member most responsible for Phillis' training, was herself quite a remarkable individual who entertained unusual views about what was appropriate for women to think and do. Influenced by the ideas of the Great Awakening, she became active in humanitarian concerns inspired by religion. She was a young adult when the great itinerant revivalist George Whitefield toured New England in 1740 with his call for spiritual regeneration, or "New Birth," for all who would listen. In a 45-day period, he delivered 175 sermons—nearly every inhabitant of the region heard at least one. The surge in popular piety associated with the Great Awakening created a new interest in improving society through the conversion of people regardless of social status or race. Susanna not only embraced such notions, she developed friendships with a number of leading British evangelicals devoted to philanthropic causes who shared this view, including Selina Hastings , countess of Huntingdon (1707–1791), and wealthy London merchant and philanthropist John Thornton. She also aided the efforts of Native American evangelist Samson Occom and like-minded whites who promoted the idea of education for Native Americans at Eleazer Wheelock's Indian Charity School (later Dartmouth College). Susanna (and later Phillis) corresponded frequently with Occom, and he often visited the Wheatley home.

Susanna Wheatley was thus far more likely than most New Englanders to recognize the precociousness of her young servant and wish to prepare the girl for religious conversion. Phillis said that Susanna provided "unwearied diligence to instruct me in the principles of true religion." Little is known about the specific details of this training or other aspects of Phillis' childhood, but her extant poems and letters reveal an acceptance of Susanna's religious views. Not all of her poems have been discovered, and copies of some certainly will never be found, but based on the many that have survived it is clear that the Bible was the primary inspiration for her art.

Phillis began corresponding with Samson Occom, the Mohegan preacher, in 1765, only four years after her forced relocation to Massachusetts. She was probably writing to others at this time, including her friend from Newport, Rhode Island, Obour Tanner . Later letters to Tanner, herself a young female slave, have survived. Some biographers of Wheatley believe that Phillis and Obour came to America on the same slave vessel in 1761. In any event, letter writing no doubt helped to refine Phillis' literary skills. The Newport Mercury, a newspaper from the town where Tanner lived, carried what may have been Phillis' first published poem on December 21, 1767, "On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin." Like some of her later poems, this verse was concerned with a memorable incident that occurred in the life of people she knew personally. Hussey and Coffin, traveling from Nantucket to Boston, were nearly shipwrecked off Cape Cod. Afterward, they visited the Wheatleys in Boston, telling of their "narrow escape" at dinner. Phillis, "at the same Time 'tending Table, heard the Relation," and composed two dozen lines of verse.

"On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin" reveals a good deal about Phillis Wheatley's education and early influences. She asks:

Did Fear and Danger so perplex your Mind,
As made you fearful of the whistling wind?
Was it not Boreas knit his angry Brow
Against you? Or did Consideration bow?
To lend you Aid, did not his winds combine?
To stop your passage with a churlish Line,
Did haughty Eolus with Contempt look down
With Aspect Windy, and a study'd Frown?

Classical references, in this case to Greek gods of wind, appear throughout her poetry. Here, the pagan gods personify forces that evoke terror derived from man's fear of nature's uncontrollable power, a theme she addressed in other poems, including "Ode to Neptune" and "To a Lady on Her Remarkable Preservation in a Hurricane in North Carolina." She goes on to counsel her subjects to take comfort in the fact that the hand of "the Great Supreme" was in this harrowing adventure. Had they been "snatch'd away … to the raging Sea," they would go "with the supreme and independent God … To Heaven." As she closes, she praises God in a brief prose passage: "Had I the Tongue of a Seraphim, how would I exalt thy Praise; thy Name as Incense to the Heavens should fly, and the Remembrance of thy Goodness to the shoreless Ocean of Beatitude!—Then should the Earth glow with seraphick Ardour."

About 14 when she composed this poem, Phillis had not known a word of English a mere six years before. But what renders "On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin" even more fascinating is the instructive tone of the verse. Through her poetry, Wheatley adopts a posture, or a separate persona, that is hardly that of a 14-year-old slave girl. A "lowly" servant would barely make eye contact with visitors Hussey and Coffin, much less speak to them. But through her poetry, Phillis assumes the lofty position of one imparting the word of God. Through her poetry, Phillis Wheatley escaped from, and actually transcended, her role as a black slave.

Wheatley drew her inspiration for her poetry from a number of sources, including Scripture, the neoclassical verse of Alexander Pope and other English artists, and the work of American poets, primarily Samuel Cooper. It is also interesting that Phillis wrote about what she knew from firsthand experience. She certainly understood the terrors of the sea, for what could be more horrifying than being placed on a large vessel at the age of seven and transported across a vast ocean, only to wonder what awful, uncertain fate loomed at the end of the ordeal? She may have witnessed fellow captives thrown overboard because they were sick or a threat to order on the slave ship, common practices on the part of European crews. Children were generally allowed to roam the decks during daylight hours in good weather; Wheatley no doubt had memories that rivaled the darkest of nightmares. But she came to terms with her fears through her devotion to God, and in part through her poetry.

This printing of Wheatley's verse did not produce widespread recognition of her genius. Certainly, visitors to the Wheatley home were continually amazed by her talent, but it was not until the publication of her "Elegiac Poem" memorializing George Whitefield that Phillis began to receive special notice. "On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, 1770," first advertised for sale in Boston newspapers on October 13 of that year, received wide publication throughout the American colonies and in England. Certainly, the revivalist's death was greeted with great sorrow in the Wheatley household. He had converted Susanna, who had then converted Phillis. In her verse, the young poet noted that Whitefield "pray'd that grace in ev'ry heart might dwell." His message was for all to "Take him, … Impartial Savior" and "You shall be sons and kings, and Priests to God," whether "wretched," "starving sinners," "preachers," "Americans," or "Africans." Phillis also consoled Susanna's English friend, Selina Hastings (Whitefield's principal benefactor), with the line:

Great Countess, we Americans revere
Thy name, and mingle in thy grief sincere

Little did Wheatley know when she penned these lines that Hastings would soon come to play a pivotal role in her life.

As any student of American history knows, George Whitefield's death in Newburyport, Massachusetts, hardly represented the most consequential demise of an inhabitant of the leading American colony in that year. On the night of March 5, five men were killed by British soldiers during the so-called Boston Massacre, and the very month that Phillis published her memorial to Whitefield, the trial of the soldiers began in the city. It was a time of great excitement for Boston's population. Phillis Wheatley was admitted to membership in the Old South Church that same year, thus joining a congregation dominated by patriot sentiment. She wrote a poem about the massacre, "On the Affray in King-Street, on the Evening of the 5th of March," and other verse sympathetic to the patriot cause. Unfortunately, this and many others addressing similar themes of the tumultuous period have been lost.

By early 1772, Wheatley was encouraged enough by her growing notoriety to propose the publication of a volume of her work. The original collection included, among poems on various subjects, "On the Death of Master Seider, who was killed by Ebenezer Richardson, 1770," "On the Arrival of the Ships of War, and the Landing of the Troops," and other patriotic verse. This project failed to receive enough backing in Boston, however, probably because of the color of the author's skin and the divisive state of local politics. It was at this point that the connection between Susanna Wheatley and Selina Hastings came into play. The countess, who knew that Phillis' poetry was genuine, agreed to help sponsor a London publication of a collection of her poems. Not all titles included were the same as the original proposal—ones devoted to controversial American themes were replaced by others—but the book would ultimately include 39 verses. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, published by Archibald Bell, appeared in late 1773.

Wheatley visited England that year at the very height of her notoriety. She had become quite ill during the winter, and doctors advised sea air as a cure, so the Wheatleys sent her off with Nathaniel Wheatley to London. Her visit attracted a great deal of attention. While Selina Hastings and John Thornton looked after her, she met the colonial secretary, Lord William Dartmouth, about whom she had been asked to compose a poem, "To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth" (1772). Impressed by the verse and a letter he had received previously from Phillis, he presented her with a copy of Cervantes' Don Quixote and gave her five guineas to purchase Alexander Pope's Complete Works. Brook Watson, later lord mayor of London, gave her a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost. American agent Benjamin Franklin "went to see the Black Poetess and offer'd her any Services I could do her." Many British notables, including literary figures, met the young celebrity. The time she spent abroad would be the highlight of her life.

I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat
—Phillis Wheatley

Wheatley was to have an audience with King George III at court and remain in London until the publication of her book. But after only five weeks there, she received word that Susanna Wheatley had fallen gravely ill. She returned home immediately, arriving in September to find "my mistress was so bad as not to be expected to live above two or three days." She would survive, however, until March 3, 1774; her death was the first in a series of events that would bring sorrow and disappointment to Phillis. As she told John Thornton shortly after Susanna's death:

By the great loss I have sustain'd of my best friend, I feel like One forsaken by her parents in a desolate wilderness, for such the world appears to me, wandering thus without my friendly guide…. She gave me many precepts and instructions; which I hope I shall never forget, Hon'd Sir, pardon me if after the retrospect of such uncommon tenderness for thirteen years from my earliest youth—such unwearied diligence to instruct me in the principles of the true Religion, this in some degree Justifies me while I deplore my misery.

Not all was dark, however, when the young notable came back home. The Boston Gazette reported the return of "Phillis Wheatley, the extraordinary Poetical Genius," and in general her reputation soared. Shortly thereafter, "at the desire of [her] friends in England" and consistent with Susanna's wishes, John Wheatley granted Phillis her freedom. She remained in John's home for the next four years, until his death in early 1778. These were the most trying years of the Revolutionary period in Boston where public attention was diverted from all but the contest between patriots and their "oppressors." It was thus impossible for Wheatley to get a second volume of her poems published.

Her support for the revolutionary cause, however, did receive attention when she wrote a poem commemorating George Washington's appointment "by the Grand Continental Congress to be Generalissimo of the armies of North America." She sent a copy to Washington in October 1775. He liked it, as he told his friend Joseph Reed, but initially refrained from having it published. He wrote back to Wheatley in early 1776, thanking her for the "elegant lines" and explaining that he had not as yet asked to see it published because he feared he "might have incurred the imputation of vanity." He did, though, note that "the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents" and invited her to visit him at his headquarters in Cambridge. The poem would be published in a number of sources in 1776, including Thomas Paine's Pennsylvania Magazine. Moreover, Wheatley accepted the invitation and subsequently met in private with the general for about half an hour at his headquarters. She may have also composed a similar panegyric for John Paul Jones, who asked a friend to deliver this message: "pray be so good as to put the Inclosed into the hands of the Celebrated Phillis, the African Favorite of the Muse and of Apollo." Obviously, the naval hero was familiar with her reputation, and may have known her personally.

Two years after Wheatley's meeting with George Washington, her life began to change dramatically. John Wheatley's death in March 1778 marked the final dissolution of the Wheatley household where Phillis grew up. Mary Wheatley left the home in 1771 when she married minister John Lathrop, and her brother Nathaniel remained in England. A month after her former master's passing, Phillis married John Peters, a charismatic free black shopkeeper of some means. Peters has often been blamed for bringing misery to Phillis' last years, for abandoning her and, through his reputed laziness, forcing her to work in a boardinghouse. But there is really no reliable historical evidence on this or the nature of any aspect of their marriage. In fact, the tax records of the period reveal that the Peterses had a home of above average value. All else that is known for certain is that the married couple had two children between 1779 and 1784, but they both died in infancy. Wheatley continually sought to have a second volume of poems published, which she dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, but could not get backing in the middle of the Revolution. This 300-page manuscript has been lost and thus many of her poems are still awaiting rediscovery. She did continue to publish verse under her married name, including "Liberty and Peace" (1784), written to celebrate the victory over the British. Late in that year, Wheatley gave birth to a third child. But complications associated with the ordeal took the lives of both mother and child. The death of the remarkable poet on December 5, 1784, received but a little attention, even in Boston.

Three years later, an American edition of Poems on Various Subjects finally appeared, and five reprints followed during the next three decades. Two more London editions were also brought out. During the first half of the 19th century, anti-slavery activists kept alive the poetry of Phillis Wheatley to help illustrate the natural abilities of African-Americans. Since then, historians and scholars of American literature often mentioned the poet as an interesting oddity, but serious analyses of her works were rare. In recent years, partly as the result of the discovery of some of her poems and letters, interest in Phillis Wheatley's life and poetry has increased dramatically. No longer dismissed as a mediocre artist who deserves but a footnote in studies of American history or literature, she is beginning to receive long-overdue acclaim as not just a "literary curio," but a woman of remarkable talent and accomplishments.

Modern critics may not rank her among the vanguard of the leading poets of all time, but as Arthur Schomburg argues, "There was no great American poetry in the eighteenth century, and Phillis Wheatley's poetry was as good as the best American poetry of her age." Sentimental neoclassical poems inspired by the Bible hardly seem the stuff of verse that transcends the ages. But many of her poems reveal a sophisticated mastery of poetic technique and some, particularly "On Imagination," "Niobe in Distress," and "To Deism," are powerful compositions that deserve a careful reading by serious students of American literature.

As Wheatley's reputation among literature scholars in general has risen, inclusion of her verse in anthologies of African-American writing has become more common. In the past, she was often ignored or even condemned for neglecting, as Vernon Loggins suggests, "her own state of slavery and the miserable oppression of thousands of her race." It is true that her references to Africa—"the land of errors" and "those dark abodes"—contrasted the continent of her birth to the "enlightened" Christian world in an unfavorable manner. But Phillis Wheatley's poetry did address subjects connected to slavery and race. Principal themes evident in her poems were freedom, escape, and equality before God. Her oft-quoted "On Being Brought from Africa to America" talks about her deliverance from a "Pagan land," but closes with the admonition:

Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

In her poem to the earl of Dartmouth, she explains "from whence my love of freedom sprung." After telling about the experience of being "snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat," she concludes:

Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?

Furthermore, it is important to note that Phillis Wheatley did directly and openly condemn the institution of slavery, if not in any extant poems. In a letter to Samson Occom in March 1774, which was reprinted in a number of newspapers throughout New England, she attacked the hypocrisy of so-called "patriots" who pleaded for liberty but would deny the same to slaves:

[I]n every human Breast, God has planted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our Modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us. God grant Deliverance in his own way and Time, and get him honor upon all those whose Avarice impels them to countenance and help forward the Calamities of their Fellow Creatures. This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite. How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the Exercise of oppressive Power over others agree.

If she failed to use her poetry as a vehicle for overt political messages, or social commentary, this hardly means she did not care about the plight of other African-Americans, or that she was somehow "less" African. The themes she addressed, the literary persona she adopted, and the personal experiences that helped spark her creative genius cannot be understood without appreciating the role of her African roots. The girl stolen from her homeland at a young age became the most talented American poet of the Revolutionary era. Any discussion of America's rich African-American literary tradition must acknowledge the greatness of Phillis Wheatley.

sources:

Mason, Julian D., ed. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1966.

Rawley, James R. "The World of Phillis Wheatley," in New England Quarterly. Vol. 50, 1977, pp. 667–677.

Robinson, William H. Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings. NY: Garland, 1984.

Wheatley, Phillis. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. John C. Shields, ed. NY: Oxford University Press, 1988.

collections:

Wheatley materials are contained in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library; the Countess of Huntingdon Papers, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England; and the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.

John M. Craig , Professor of History, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, author of Lucia Ames Mead and the American Peace Movement and numerous articles on activist American women

Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia