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Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784)
Given the hardships of life in early America, it is ironic that some of the best poetry of the period was written by an exceptional slave woman. The first African-American author of importance in the United States, Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa and brought to Boston, Massachusetts, when she was about seven, where she was purchased by the pious and wealthy tailor John Wheatley to be a companion for his wife. The Wheatleys recognized Phillis’s remarkable intelligence and, with the help of their daughter, Mary, Phillis learned to read and write.
Wheatley’s poetic themes are religious, and her style is neoclassical. Her poem To S. M., a Young African Painter, on seeing His Works unsettles some contemporary critics —, whites because they find it conventional, and blacks because the poem does not protest the immorality of slavery. Wheatley was the first to address white racism and spiritual equality confidently in verse in another poem, On Being Brought from Africa to America.
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