The First African American Author

On July 11, 1761 a slave ship named The Phillis carrying hundreds of human cargo from present day Gambia including an 8 year old girl. The name her parents gave her as they looked into her new born eyes has been lost to history. 1/

What we do know is that she was enslaved in Boston by John Wheatley, a wealthy merchant who gifted the young girl to his wife, Susanna. They re-named the girl Phillis after the slave ship that snatched her from her family and gave her the last name Wheatley.
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The Wheatleys’ 18 year old daughter began to tutor Phillis & seeing her unique aptitude, it became a family affair. By age 12, Phillis was reading Greek & Latin classical literature. Phillis wrote her first poem at 14. 3/

At age 20, she was sent to England with one of the Wheatley family sons. There, Selina Hastings, a Methodist revivalist, sponsored the publication of a book of her poems titled “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.” It sent shockwaves throughout Europe & the U.S.! 4/

Wheatley wrote with a poetic resistance that dazzled with lines like: Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic dye."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.” #Barz 5/

The idea of racial superiority made it difficult for most white readers to believe that an enslaved African wrote poetry. She even had to defend her authorship in court!
Wheatley thought the power of poetry was as limitless as the God she wrote so frequently about. 6/

Right after the publication of the book, the Wheatleys emancipated her. She married John Peters a freed black man in 1778, 5 years after her publication of the book. Once freed, the “progressives” who had celebrated her moved on. Her and her husband loss 2 babies in poverty. 7/

Her husband was in prisoned for indebtedness in 1784 & she died a few months later at age of 31. In 1773, she was considered the most famous African in the world. Voltaire, the French philosopher wrote to a friend that Phillis “proved that black people could write poetry.” 8/

Amazing to think white supremacy was so entrenched in the 1770’s that the mere act of writing poetry would be with such astonishment. Wheatley was shaped by the complexity of living in such a world. 9/

Her legacy is every Black person who has put pen to paper in such a world knowing their very brilliance is a form of resistance. When Amanda Gorman delivers powerful poetry that stuns the world at 22 years old, I think of Phillis Wheatley 248 years ago. #BlackHistoryMonth 10/10