Phillis Wheatley was an enslaved girl brought from West Africa to Boston who became the first African American and first Black woman to publish a book of poetry, gaining transatlantic fame in 1773. Her work used classical and Christian themes to argue for the spiritual and intellectual equality of Black people, influencing early American and African American literature.

Who Phillis Wheatley Was

  • Phillis Wheatley (also known as Phillis Wheatley Peters) was born in West Africa around 1753 and kidnapped as a child, then sold into slavery and transported to Boston.
  • She was purchased by the Wheatley family, who noticed her intelligence, taught her to read and write, and encouraged her literary talent.

Major Achievements

  • Wheatley became the first African American and one of the first women in the colonies to publish a book of poetry when Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in 1773.
  • Her poems had religious, classical, and elegiac themes and were praised by prominent figures, including George Washington; the book helped establish African American literature as a recognizable tradition.

Notable Works and Themes

  • One of her best-known poems is “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” which reflects on her enslavement and uses Christian language to challenge racist assumptions.
  • She also wrote an influential elegy on the death of the evangelist George Whitefield in 1770, which brought her international attention in both Britain and the American colonies.

Later Life and Struggles

  • Wheatley traveled to London in 1773 to secure publication of her book, supported by patrons such as Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.
  • She was later freed from slavery, married, and lived in difficult financial circumstances in Boston, unable to find a publisher for a second volume of poems before her death in 1784.

Why She Matters Today

  • Wheatley is widely regarded as a founder of African American literature in English, often mentioned alongside Olaudah Equiano for shaping early Black writing and antislavery discourse.
  • Modern scholars and educators see her as a key figure in Black, women’s, and early American literary history, and her life continues to inspire discussions about race, freedom, and authorship in the colonial era.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.