Phyllis Wheatley was born in 1753 in Senegal, Africa, but her last name wasn't "Wheatley." When she was seven years old, she was taken from Africa to Boston and sold to John and Susannah Wheatley. She was picked to be a servant to the Wheatleys, but instead she was raised as one of the Wheatley's children. The Wheatleys taught Phyllis how to write and read English, and at age12, and she was reading Latin and Greek classics and the Bible.

Phyllis Wheatley wrote her first poem at age 13. In 1770, she wrote a poem about the great Evangelist, George Whitefield, and his sad, tragic death. Many people all over Boston, Massachusetts read this poem, and she became quite famous. They could tell that she had very poetic thoughts, and could easily put them into kind, loving, and gentle words.

People who had never heard of her wanted her to write more, turning her into a sensation, or a hit. In 1773, she published her first book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. This book included thirty-nine of her poems. In most of the poems she wrote in heroic couplet and contained elegies. This book indeed became famous, and is still known quite well today. A lot of people have read it since her death. This was the first book to ever be published in the colonies by an African-American.

Phyllis Wheatley received a great amount of prejudice in her lifetime. She tried to end slavery by using her poetic style of writing to make people not hate African-Americans. She had been a part of the slave trade, and survived it. She tried to make people understand what they were doing to one another. She tried to make people think that all men were equal. Her thoughts ended up being right after she died, but no one ever thought that she was right when she was still alive. It is a wonder how one woman could have written so much to try and help our nation in a time of need and never even once be considered for her thoughts, but then later on, we abolished slavery. Our founding fathers told her in one simple word the answer to her question about abolishing slavery. The one word was "no." Were we hypocrites to the African-American society for changing the answer on abolishing slavery?

Later on in life, Phyllis received her freedom from the Wheatleys. In 1778, she married another freed African-American man. She eventually died of poverty, but people were still influenced by her. In the 1830's, a little before the Civil War, people used her poems and writings as proof that slavery should be eliminated. She was living proof that African-Americans could succeed in this new world, although there was much hate against them.       Read more about Phyillis Wheatley. This site has an index of Phyllis Wheatley's writings.

Image courtesy of ArtToday.