“Adieu, New-England's smiling meads,
Adieu, th' flow'ry plain:
I leave thine op'ning charms, O spring,
And tempt the roaring main.”
This is the story of the first Black poet in the United States of America. Phillis Wheatley was born in 1753 in West Africa, probably Gambia or Senegal, but she’s about to be captured and enslaved soon so as you can probably imagine the exact location is a little fuzzy.
John Wheatley was an American merchant and trader who went on a little trip to Africa to buy a person. The person he bought was then spirited across the Atlantic Ocean to Boston, Massachusetts to serve the Wheatley family. Before I go any further I need to explicitly state that the Wheatley’s were not tight! In the story I present, they might come across as benevolent and righteous folks who were ahead of their time, but I need to really impress upon you the fact that this man crossed an ocean in the 1700s to buy a woman as property so…
So Phillis was super smart! Like, even more so than the Wheatley children. This did not escape the notice of her captors and they decided she didn’t need to do any manual labor. She was to be brought up just as educated as the family’s white children. In fact, by 12, Phillis was already an adept reader also fluent in Greek and Latin and by fourteen, something that was even uncommon amongst white women. As a 14-year-old girl, Phillis had even begun to write her own poetry. Her first recorded poem was entitled, “To the University of Cambridge, in New England” (Which is what they used to call Harvard, which is apparently a pretty good school?)
At the age of 20, Phillis accompanied John Wheatley to London. The Wheatleys believed that she was gifted but knew she couldn’t get her pieces published in the States, so they went to the UK to find a deal. What they found instead was an extra receptive group of British folks who loved the idea of a Black Woman who could write poetry. It even caught the eye of King George III but Phillis was like, “I kind of miss Boston, maybe the king can take a raincheck?” So she left before it went down!
However, before returning to America, Phillis caught the eye of one Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon. She loved her poetry and story and was like, “Sis, I NEED more of this. Whatever money you need to get your work published, I got you!” So in 1773, that’s exactly what happened? Look, Phillis didn’t need King George to validate her, she just needed one homegirl with a lot of money to make moves in the world!
So that year her book is published and the Wheatleys are like, “Oh, snap…you’re still legally our slave, huh? That won’t do…I guess you’re free now!” And Phillis is legally and officially emancipated. In 1778 she meets a fine brother working at a grocery store named John Peters and got married. The two would try to have children but were unsuccessful. When they finally had two babies, they did not survive long after birth. Super dark, but such was life back in the day.
In the winter of 1784 Phillis passed away, the first Black poet to be published in America. So why am I telling what seems like kind of a bummer story? Because the idea that the Trans Atlantic was literally sapping the life out of extraordinary people is something that always bothered me. Like, what if y'all left Phillis alone and let her write poetry in Gambia, or Senegal, or wherever since we don’t know where she was actually born because of SLAVERY?!?
Anyway, the positive spin I can give on Phillis is that her work is available and free to find, it’s literally a google search away. And throughout her life and her work she spoke of beauty, truth, and most importantly freedom, and that's why today I’m gonna take a good amount of time to reflect on her work! Thank you, Phillis!
“For when thy pitying eye did see
The languid muse in low degree,
Then, then at thy desire
Descended the celestial nine;
O'er me methought they deign'd to shine,
And deign'd to string my lyre.”
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