Home » Reading & Literature » Biographies » Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

© Mary M. Alward

Phillis Wheatley was born in West Africa (present day Senegal) in either 1753 or 1754. (her exact date of birth is not known) When she was seven or eight, she was captured by slave traders, put on a slave ship and brought to Boston. Here, she was purchased by a wealthy merchant, John Wheatley, as a personal maid for his wife, Susanna.

When purchased, Phillis was delicate and unhealthy. The couple took her into the home, named her Phillis and gave her their last name, which was customary at the time. The girl was treated more like a member of the family than like a slave.

One day John and Susanna saw young Phillis using a piece of chalk to write on a wall. Instead of punishing her, the couple gave her only light housekeeping duties and encouraged her to learn to read and write. She was given a warm, private room and a lamp to use for the purpose of furthering her education. Phillis was free to visit friends of the Wheatley family, but was forbidden any contact with other slaves.

Phillis was quick to obey. Within six months she has mastered the English language and could read quite well. By the age of twelve she was reading passages from the Bible and from the Latin and Greek classics. As a result, she became better educated than most of the upper class men of that day. It was rare for women to have a formal education and even rarer for slaves to have any education whatsoever.

Phillis wrote her first poem when she was thirteen. In 1767, it was published in the Newport Mercury, a newspaper.

In 1773, Phillis traveled with the Wheatley family to England, where she met Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon. The Countess was impressed. She used her influence to have a book of Phillis' poems published. It was titled, Poems on Various Subjects, Religion and Moral

Soon after returning to Boston, John and Susanna gave Phillis her freedom. When Susannah died in March, 1774 Phillis was deeply grieved. She and Susannah had been very close.

Once she was free, Phillis wrote an anti-slavery letter. This was a precursor to the American Abolitionist Movement. It would be over one hundred years before another black writer would write openly about the African-American experience.

Phillis was not a shy woman. She sent one of her poems to George Washington. He wrote back praising her talent and inviting her to visit. Thomas Jefferson read her book and criticized it, saying that she would never make it as a poet. It is hard to take Jefferson's critique seriously, as he didn't even spell her name properly.

The copyright of the article Phillis Wheatley in Biographies is owned by . Permission to republish Phillis Wheatley in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.