Phillis Wheatley published Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in London in 1773. She was the first African American and the first enslaved person to publish a book of poetry in the American colonies. In December 1775 she sent a poem to George Washington. Washington read it, wrote back, and later invited her to call at his headquarters in Cambridge. Both documents are in the archive.
Phillis Wheatley was purchased at a Boston slave market in 1761 by John and Susanna Wheatley when she was approximately seven or eight years old, newly arrived from West Africa. Susanna Wheatley and her daughter Mary taught Phillis to read and write. She was given access to classical literature, Latin, and the Bible. By the time she was eleven, she was writing verse. By the time she was fourteen, she had published her first poem in the Newport Mercury.
In 1772, Wheatley sought to publish a collection. Boston publishers were skeptical that an enslaved Black woman could have written the poems. A group of eighteen prominent Boston men, including John Hancock and Governor Thomas Hutchinson, questioned her in person. They concluded she had written the poems and signed a statement to that effect, which appeared as a preface in the published book. Finding no Boston publisher willing to proceed, she turned to London. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published by Archibald Bell in London on September 1, 1773.
In December 1775, Wheatley sent George Washington a poem titled 'To His Excellency General Washington.' Washington responded in a letter dated February 28, 1776. He acknowledged the poem and explained why he had not published it, noting concern that publishing a poem written in his honor would appear vain. He invited her to call at his headquarters in Cambridge if she ever came to that part of the country.
Miss Phillis, Your favor of the 26th of October did not reach my hands, 'till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect.
Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write.
While freedom's cause her anxious breast alarms,
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
See mother earth her offspring's fate bemoan,
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!
See the bright beams of heaven's revolving light
Involved in sorrows and the veil of night!
Olive and laurel binds her golden hair:
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumber'd charms and recent graces rise.
How pour her armies on these hostile shores,
What seas, what shores, what nations, what unknown,
What various realms, what climes, what regions own
Thy matchless valour, and thy wide renown!
Supreme in war, and peace, and every thing;
Thy matchless valour, and thy wide renown,
Columbia's boast, and Freedom's fairest son.
Thy ev'ry action let the Goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! be thine.
The poem 'To His Excellency General Washington' was published in the Pennsylvania Magazine in April 1776. The Washington letter is at Founders Online. The MHS holds her manuscript letters and additional poems.
Nathaniel Wheatley emancipated Phillis following her return from London in 1773. Susanna Wheatley died in March 1774. In April 1778, Phillis married John Peters, a free Black man in Boston. She continued writing but could not find a publisher for a second collection. She died on December 5, 1784, at approximately thirty-one years of age.
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.
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