Phillis Wheatley: African-American Published Poet

Phillis Wheatley became the first African American enslaved poet to have her work published in 1773 at nineteen years old. Archibald Bell published her book of poems entitled “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.” Eighteen Boston men, including John Hancock and Thomas Hutchinson, testified that Wheatley wrote the poems. Poems like “On Being Brought from Africa to America” highlight that some view dark skin as evil, but Christians should remember Black people are equally good and deserving of heaven. This wording caused some white audiences to question the morality of slavery, who otherwise might not have. 

After the Wheatley family bought Phillis when she was about seven, they quickly noticed her bright intelligence and saw to her education. By the age of twelve, Wheatley was reading Greek and Latin classics, as well as the Bible. She studied literature, theology, astronomy, and geography—subjects usually reserved for elite white males. 

After her master died in 1778, Wheatley married a free Black man named John Peters. Their marriage faced financial hardship and experienced the loss of several children in infancy. Although she continued to write after marrying, American publishers refused to take a Black writer’s work. She persevered by doing readings and publishing some of her work in newspapers.

Throughout Wheatley’s life, she had asthma and possibly tuberculosis. Her illness often interrupted her writing and public appearances. Fragile health, combined with poverty, contributed to her early death at around age 31 in 1784.

As a literate, articulate, and published African woman, she put severe dents in the argument that racial inferiority justified enslavement.