Google Earth Community: Phillis Wheatley: Slave, Poet, American

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In 1761, an eight year old child was kidnapped on the west coast of Africa. Like millions before and millions afterwards, she was transported to the New World and sold into slavery. Remarkably, she would quickly learn to speak, read and write english and would eventually travel to London, publish a book of poetry, correspond with General George Washington, meet John Hancock, earn the admiration of Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire and after her death, excite the scorn of Thomas Jefferson.

Phillis Wheatley, given the name of the slave ship which brought her to America along with the surname of white owners, was the first black individual, the first slave and the third woman to publish a book of poetry. She did so in 1773 earning for herself an amount of recognition previously unheard of for a slave. One of the bedrock beliefs of the Western world was that black Africans were intellectually inferior and incapable of any advanced learning; this belief also provided an easy rationalization for slavery. So firm were these prejudices that the Wheatleys, in their effort to have Phillis's poems published, enlisted the assistance of numerous prominent Bostonians, who personally quizzed the young woman to determine whether she indeed had the intelligence and scholarship to have created her works. Their testimony was published as the preface to her book. Her accomplishments provided the growing Abolition movement with ample evidence that blacks had the same intellectual capabilities as did whites.

A year after her death however, Thomas Jefferson was still unconvinced, writing that "religion indeed has produced a Phillis Whately; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism." (His comment was consistent with his views at the time, which he subsequently rejected.) Two centuries after her death, African-American critics soundly rejected her work as well, because she did not use her gifts to primarily speak out against slavery. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has noted that, too black to be taken seriously by white critics in the 18th Century, Wheatley was now considered too white to interest black critics in the 20th".

Even worse than the criticism is the fact that so few today know of her existence, despite her having accomplished so much in such daunting circumstances.This placemark collection provides an introduction to the tragedies and triumphs of her life. I hope that you find it interesting.

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I used a variety of sources for this presentation, but the most helpful was Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s elegant monograph The Trials of Phillis Wheatley

Edited by LuciaM (03/31/08 09:02 PM)

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