WHO WAS PHILLIS WHEATLEY? | A brief Biography

Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known American poets prior to the 19th century (1800 - 1899).
Wheatley was seized from Senegal/Gambia, West Africa when she around seven years old. This was around 1753.
Wheatley was transported to Boston on a ship that was carrying enslaved ppl considered as refugees owing to their age or physical frailties.
She was soon immersed in the Bible, astronomy, geography, history, British literature and the Greek and Latin classics.
At thirteen, Wheatley published her first poem in the Newport Mercury Newspaper. She modeled her work after famous English poets. A lot of her poems were about religious things because she was taught about the Bible from an early age.
Her first poem, called “On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin,” appeared in print in 1767. Three years later she gained fame in the American colonies and abroad with an elegy to George Whitefield, a popular preacher. By the time she was about 18, Wheatley had produced a collection of 28 poems covering themes including morality, piety, and freedom. However, no American publisher was willing to print the work of an enslaved person.
In 1773, she accompanied Nathaniel Wheatley to England. She published thirty-nine of her poems in a book called Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. This was the first book of poetry published by a black American.

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"The world is a severe school master, for its frowns are less dangerous than its smiles and flatteries" - Phillis Wheatley
The idea that African people were intellectually inferior was a justification for slavery. The legacy of that malicious and terrorising publicity, still lingers.

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Wonderfully and artfully reviewed to reveal GOD'S Love in Phyllis"s heart . ❤

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Bold woman, magnificent

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Amazing!

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A poem by PHILLIS WHEATLEY upon seeing a young African Painter's (S.M.) work:
To show the lab’ring bosom’s deep intent,
And thought in living characters to paint,
When first thy pencil did those beauties give,
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live,
How did those prospects give my soul delight,
A new creation rushing on my sight?
Still, wond’rous youth! each noble path pursue,
On deathless glories fix thine ardent view:
Still may the painter’s and the poet’s fire
To aid thy pencil, and thy verse conspire!
And may the charms of each seraphic theme
Conduct thy footsteps to immortal fame!
High to the blissful wonders of the skies
Elate thy soul, and raise thy wishful eyes.
Thrice happy, when exalted to survey
That splendid city, crown’d with endless day,
Whose twice six gates on radiant hinges ring:
Celestial Salem blooms in endless spring.
Calm and serene thy moments glide along,
And may the muse inspire each future song!
Still, with the sweets of contemplation bless’d,
May peace with balmy wings your soul invest!
But when these shades of time are chas’d away,
And darkness ends in everlasting day,
On what seraphic pinions shall we move,
And view the landscapes in the realms above?
There shall thy tongue in heav’nly murmurs flow,
And there my muse with heav’nly transport glow:
No more to tell of Damon’s tender sighs,
Or rising radiance of Aurora’s eyes,
For nobler themes demand a nobler strain,
And purer language on th’ ethereal plain.
Cease, gentle muse! the solemn gloom of night
Now seals the fair creation from my sight.