Literary Pioneers
© Walter Benefield
Words cannot reveal the full gravity of the suffering and misery that slaves endured from their capture through the middle passage and then a life of bondage. How the slaves, these displaced Africans, reacted to their enslavement that is another story entirely. Phillis Wheatley used the written word to expound on her life as a slave and proclaimed her patriotic zeal later as a free woman. Enduring the horrors of the middle passage and than enslavement as a slave required hope for the future, this hope was essentially for physical and mental survival.
Phillis Wheatley’s success as a writer dismissed any notions that African slaves were less intelligent than their captives. Cared for as a family member and educated by her owners not as slave but rather a daughter. The first African American to publish a book in North America, Wheatley wrote primarily in of poetic verse. Phillis Wheatley’s work defies logic, she unashamedly proclaimed that her enslavement was a blessing and afforded her the opportunities that she enjoyed as a writer. “Twas mercy brought me from the my Pagan land”, she writes in “On Being Brought from Africa.”
It is difficult at first glance to understand how she could be thankful for being kidnapped and enslaved, but with further investigation Wheatley's feelings and her view of life and the world in which she lived in are revealed. As a Christian, Phillis Wheatley believed in eternal life that is, life after death in a heavenly place. This future hope is apparent in her prose. “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.” Holding on to this hope must have provided a great deal of solace in Wheatley’s life.
Instead of rebelling and looking for a means of escape or resistance she instead took an alternative route, assimilation. Enslaved at a young age Phillis Wheatley was essentially raised in the new world and was thankful to her captives and was well educated and well read. Absorbing the religious, social and cultural ways of her captives and their country, Wheatley made the best of her situation. The question of her loyalty to her people could be easily raised and then the question of who are her people must also be raised. In poetic and patriotic verse Wheatley clearly stands on the side of conservatism along with her captives. She hailed George Washington at his appointment to General of the armies of North America, “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side.” Wheatley felt she belonged to Colonial America and if ask today I am sure she would state that she is American. I think is fair to say that Wheatley as she aged and was exposed to the prejudice that slavery brought and the rhetoric of the Abolitionists that she questioned herself and her work. Choosing the road of least resistance afforded Wheatley access to the masses and took her through doors that would have been otherwise shut to her as a slave.
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