She was called Phillis, because that was the name of the ship that brought her, and Wheatley, which was the name of the merchant who bought her. She was born in Senegal.

In Boston the slave traders put her up for sale: “She’s 7 years old! She will be a good mare!”

She was felt, naked, by many hands.

At thirteen, she was already writing poems in a language that was not her own. No one believed that she was the author. At the age of twenty, Phillis was questioned by a court of eighteen enlightened men in robes and wigs.

She had to recite passages from Virgil and Milton and some verses from the Bible, and she also had to vow that the poems she had composed were not copied. From a chair, she underwent her lengthy examination, until the court approved her: she was a woman, she was Black, she was enslaved, but she was a poet.

Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American writer to publish a book in the United States.

: Black History Studies on Facebook / https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

Phillis Wheatley

On Being Brought from Africa to America

‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

A Hymn to the Evening

Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev’ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!
Fill’d with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav’nly, more refin’d;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night’s leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.