Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784) is widely recognized as the first African American woman and only the third American woman to publish a book of poems.¹ Born around 1753 in Gambia, Africa, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery. In 1761, she was brought to Boston, Massachusetts, aboard a ship called the Phillis. The Wheatley family, who purchased her, named her Phillis after the ship.²

Despite her status as an enslaved person the Wheatley’s allowed Phillis to receive an education, uncommon for enslaved people at the time. Although she spoke no English upon her arrival in America, she soon proved to be a precocious learner, and was tutored by the Wheatley’s’ daughter Mary in English, Latin, history, geography, religion, and the Bible in particular.³ Her first published poem, “On Messrs Hussey and Coffin,” appeared in 1767 in the Newport Mercury.⁴

Publication of “An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of the Celebrated Divine George Whitefield” in 1770 brought her to the public’s attention. In 1773, with financial support from a friend of the Wheatley’s, the English Countess of Huntingdon, Wheatley traveled to London with the Wheatley’s son to publish her first collection of poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. It included a forward, signed by John Hancock and other Boston notables.⁵ Her celebrity, along with England’s criticism of America that simultaneously subjugated her while comparing its own relationship to the Crown as slavery, led the Wheatley’s to emancipate her in 1774.⁶

Phillis Wheatley’s poems reflect several influences on her life, among them well-known men such as Alexander Pope and Thomas Gray. Her writing style embraced the elegy, likely from her African roots, where it was the role of girls to sing and perform funeral dirges. Religion was also a key influence, leading Protestants in America and England to enjoy her work. Enslavers and abolitionists both read her work; the former to convince the enslaved population to convert, the latter as proof of the intellectual abilities of people of color.⁷

Wheatley was a proponent of American independence from England and deftly pondered the American’s desire for freedom in contrast to their continued support of slavery.

 …for in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us.⁸

In 1778, Wheatley married John Peters, a free Black man living in Boston, and the couple had three children, two of whom may have died in infancy.⁹ To support her family, she worked as a maid in a boardinghouse while continuing to write poetry. Wheatley became ill and died on December 5th, 1784.¹⁰

Phillis Wheatley’s enduring legacy as a trailblazer in American literature epitomizes resilience and talent in the face of overwhelming adversity.

1. Michals, Debra. “Phillis Wheatley.” National Women’s History Museum. National Women’s History Museum, 2015. Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-wheatley ↩︎
2. Michals, Debra. “Phillis Wheatley.” National Women’s History Museum. National Women’s History Museum, 2015. Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-wheatley ↩︎
3. Massachusetts Historical Society, “African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts: Phillis Wheatley”, Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.masshist.org/features/endofslavery/wheatley ↩︎
4. Massachusetts Historical Society, “African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts: Phillis Wheatley”, Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.masshist.org/features/endofslavery/wheatley ↩︎
5. Michals, Debra. “Phillis Wheatley.” National Women’s History Museum. National Women’s History Museum, 2015. Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-wheatley ↩︎
6. BBS, “Phillis Wheatley: The unsung Black poet who shaped the US”, 15 Dec. 2023, Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230220-phillis-wheatley-the-unsung-black-poet-who-shaped-the-us ↩︎
7. Michals, Debra. “Phillis Wheatley.” National Women’s History Museum. National Women’s History Museum, 2015. Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-wheatley ↩︎
8. PBS, Africans in America, “Letter to Reverend Samuel Occum”, published in The Connecticut Gazette, March 11, 1774, Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h19t.html ↩︎
9. Massachusetts Historical Society, “African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts: Phillis Wheatley”, Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.masshist.org/features/endofslavery/wheatley ↩︎
10. Michals, Debra. “Phillis Wheatley.” National Women’s History Museum. National Women’s History Museum, 2015. Accessed February 4, 2025. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-wheatley ↩︎

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