Phillis Wheatley (b. 1753) was brought from Africa and enslaved in 1761 as an 8 year old child. Unlike most slave/master relationships, Ms. Wheatley was encouraged by her Boston merchant owner, John Wheatley, to actually write. He realized that Phillis had amazing intelligence & wit and encouraged her to express herself and Mrs. Wheatley became her tutor to nurture the talent that laid within young Phillis.
Her poetry & writings are considered the first important written works in African-American Literature. Her poems often were filled with religious themes. Ms. Wheatley was successful in her achievements as a writer. Some of them include:
- Being the first African-American to publish a book of imaginative writing.
- She combined the influences of religion and neo-classicism in her poems.
- She´s said to have started the African-American literary tradition.
- She started the African-American women´s literary tradition.
- Her use of meter and rhyme-scheme being precise and correct.
Ms Wheatley suffered from asthma and the cold winters New England experienced intensified her condition so the Wheatley´s arranged for a trip to England so that Phillis could recover & continue to work on her writing. Phillis Wheatley went to England in 1773 where her "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" was then published. This would be her first on only published volume of work.
Upon returning from England Ms. Wheatley struggled alone after the deaths of the Wheatley´s. In 1778 Wheatley married John Peters, a free black man with whom she eventually went on to have three children with. Racial tension was a concern for most black in America so John put Phillis & their three children in a boarding house that allowed "Negroes". The conditions of the housing was so inadequite that the deaths of the children resulted. Phillis´ health also deteriorated.
Dispite her ill fortune and ailing health, she continued to write. In hopes of finding a publisher for a volume of thirty-three poems and thirteen letters she´d written, Phillis she advertised in the "Boston Evening Post" and "General Advertiser," in search of a publisher. The year was 1779 and due to the struggling post-revolutionary economy of the country, this project was never published.
In 1784, Ms. Phillis Wheatley died virtually alone and in poverty. Its been reported that after her death, John Peters went to a woman who had provided temporary shelter for Phillis and the children and demanded the manuscripts for her proposed second volume. Unfortunately, these pieces of work disappeared with Peters and have never been recovered.
