Phillis Wheatley
US History/Napp Name: ______
Biography:
At a Glance
Despite being kidnapped as a child and sold into slavery, Phillis Wheatley became well read and an accomplished poet. Wheatley became a symbol of the intellectual potential of African Americans in the years before the Civil War. Abolitionists often cited her work when countering proslavery arguments based on alleged racial inferiority, and when arguing for equal educational opportunities for African Americans.
~ Glencoe American Biographies
“I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate was snatched from Africa’s fancied happy seat; What pangs excruciating molest, What sorrows, labor in my parent’s breast!”
A young African child, 7 or 8 years old, was kidnapped from her home in Senegal. She survived the brutal ocean passage on the slave ship and then was sold as a slave to the Wheatley family of Boston in 1761. John Wheatley, a successful tailor in the city, bought the young African girl to serve as a companion to his wife Susannah.
The young enslaved girl, whom the Wheatleys named Phillis, displayed amazing intelligence and a capacity for learning well beyond her years. Recognizing the girl’s potential, Susannah Wheatley and her children began to teach Phillis to read. In addition to the Bible and English translations of Homer, Phillis was soon devouring mythology and poetry along with Latin classics. Her translation of a tale by the Latin poet Ovid evoked a wave of astonishment from Boston’s scholarly elite. Just 13 years old when she wrote her first poem, Phillis waited until she was 17 before seeing her work, “On the Death of Reverend George Whitefield,” published in a Boston newspaper.
When some white Americans scoffed at the notion that a young enslaved African could create such extraordinarily mature poetry, many defenders – including Thomas Jefferson, who disliked her poems – vouched for her authenticity.
Emancipated in 1773, Phillis left for England to bolster her frail health. While in London, she published her first book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Nearly all the poems reflected Wheatley’s deep religious convictions. Raised a Congregationalist in the Wheatley household, she belonged to Boston’s Old South Meeting House, despite the fact that enslaved people were barred from church membership.
Although she planned to publish a second volume of poems, Wheatley cut short her stay in England, returning to Boston in 1774 to be with Susannah Wheatley, who had become gravely ill. Susannah died shortly after Phillis returned, and her death marked the beginning of the sad, final chapter of Phillis Wheatley’s life.
In 1778 she married John Peters, a free African American man, but he proved unable to support her and their two children. Phillis worked at a boarding house to provide for herself and her children. Never a physically strong individual, she died, impoverished, at the age of 31.
Decades following her death, two additional books of Phillis Wheatley’s works were published: Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, in 1834, and Letters of Phillis Wheatley, the Negro Slave-Poet of Boston, in 1864.
1-How was Phillis Wheatley educated? ______
2-How did Phillis Wheatley show her devotion to the Wheatley family?
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3-How did Phillis Wheatley’s life help provide an argument for abolition?
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4-Why is it important for students of American history to know about Phillis Wheatley?
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5-How did the poetry of Phillis Wheatley change some Americans’ views on slavery?
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6-What were the tragedies of Phillis Wheatley’s life?
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7-What were the accomplishments and joys of Phillis Wheatley’s life?
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8-Why is Phillis Wheatley’s life inspirational?
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Primary and Secondary Sources:
“Primary and secondary sources can provide different kinds of information about the past. In the context of slavery, Phillis Wheatley is considered the most important figure of the eighteenth century. Two accounts of her experience having been carried to America and then enslaved appear below. Read each account, and then answer the questions that follow.
Reading 1:
“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 Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d , and join th’ angelic train.
Reading 2:
Slavery in the Founding Era
“Phillis Wheatley, an American poet, is considered to be the first important black writer in the United States. Brought from Africa in 1761, she became a house slave for the Boston merchant John Wheatley and his wife Susanna, who, recognizing her intelligence and wit, educated her and encouraged her talent. Although Wheatley traveled to England where she was much admired and soon after obtained her freedom, she eventually died in poverty.”
Sources: The first selection is “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” by Phillis Wheatley, published in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). The second selection is from
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Questions for Discussion:
1-Which account is a primary source and which is a secondary source? How can you tell?
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2-Who was the audience for the primary source? ______
3-Who is the audience for the secondary source?
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4-What information does the primary source give you that the secondary source does not?
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5-What information does the secondary source give you that the primary source does not?
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6-Name a primary source you have used recently.
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7-Name a secondary source you have used recently.
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8-Look at the engraving below. What further information does this picture tell you about Phillis Wheatley?
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9-Use her poem (the primary source document) to explain how Wheatley expresses both her gratitude for Christian salvation and her dislike of racial slavery. Cite specific phrases and lines to support your view.
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