Phillis Wheatley, the first African American published poet in America -- What lessons can we learn from her for today? Plenty!

by Bonnie Hurd Smith

The astonishing thing about Phillis Wheatley, if you don't know her story, is that she was kidnapped from her home in Africa at age seven or eight, shipped across the Atlantic on a slave ship (enduring the horrific middle passage), and "sold" in Boston, half naked, to the Wheatley family where she would become a personal servant to the aging Susanna Wheatley. The odds of Phillis surviving any of this ordeal were awfully high.

Phillis Wheatley went on to become the first African American published poet. She is also considered the originator of the African American literary tradition. The odds of any of THAT happening were perhaps even greater.

When Phillis (named for the slave ship that carried her to Boston) first arrived in Massachusetts, she did not speak English. But there was something about her that won over her new mistress, Susanna Wheatley, and as Phillis Wheatley's biographer, William Henry Robinson writes, Susanna "doted" on her. Susanna had her daughter, Mary, teach Phillis to read and write, which Phillis took to with extraordinary ability and talent.

Phillis began her writing career in 1765, at about the age of twelve, with poems and elegies that included several on the Rev. Joseph Sewall, the minister of Boston's Old South Meeting House and the author of a famous anti-slavery tract. Many of Phillis's poems and open letters were written to or about prominent people including a tribute to George Washington who, in turn, invited Phillis to visit his headquarters in Cambridge. Other poems displayed her knowledge of the scriptures, ancient history, and literature.

With the Wheatley family's backing, Phillis's book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, appeared in 1773. It was published in London, as no Boston printer would publish the book. In the book's opening pages, readers found a letter signed by John Wheatley, Phillis's "master," and a dozen or so prominent men of Boston who testified that Phillis had, in fact, written the poems herself. Phillis went to London with the Wheatleys' son during the book's production, and met dozens of England's most prominent citizens.

Susanna Wheatley died soon after the book's publication, and Phillis was given her freedom. Soon after, Phillis published an open letter to her friend the Native American Christian minister Rev. Samuel Occom, in which she denounced the "pious" Christian ministers who supported slavery. She quoted scripture to prove her points, and her letter appeared in numerous newspapers.

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