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Posted by Jen on May 07, 19103 at 16:38:28:
In Reply to: Re: Phillis Wheatly posted by Danielle on April 02, 19103 at 20:43:15:
Phillis Wheatly
Phillis Wheatley was born in Senegal Africa the date of her birth was never really known because she was sold into slavery at such a young age. When Phillis was seven years old she was sold to John and Susannah Wheatly who lived in Boston. Phillis was bought by the Wheatly’s to be a slave for them, but instead they raised her as a member of the family with their two other children. Phillis learned to read and write in English and at the age twelve she was reading Greek and Latin clics, and pages from the Bible.
The year she turned thirteen was when she wrote her first poem. In 1770 Phillis became very popular in Boston when she wrote a poem on the death of the preacher George Whitefield. Three years after that thirty-nine of her poems were published in a London poetry book. It was the first book to be published by a black American. Wheatly’s poems reflect her religion and how she was brought up. Most of her poems reflect the theme of Christian salvation.
It was almost one hundred years later before another black writer would openly write about the African-American experience. She could not support her family even with her talents, she died off into complete poverty. When Mr. And Mrs. Wheatly died, Phillis was left to support herself as a seamstress and poet. Phillis wrote a letter to support George Washington; he replied with an invitation to visit him in Cambridge, saying that he would be “happy to see a person so favored by the muses.”
Wheatly never wrote about racism in any of her poetry, however she did write about how it was being brought from Africa to America. The Wheatly family formally freed Phillis when she was twenty years old, but she stayed with them until marriage. She married John Peters who was a free black man, in the year 1778. During this time Wheatly tried newspaper advertisements to get enough subscribers to publish a collection of her poems; because of her racial background it made this task impossible. Eventually she got her poems published in London 1773.
Kittredge 2
John Peters kept a grocery store Phillis and John had three children together, all of whom died young. Phillis Wheatly died alone in a boarding house in 1784, at the age of thirty-one. It’s estimated that Phillis wrote fifty five to one hundred and forty-five poems. Phillis Wheatly is famous not just because her poetry was so good, but also because she was the first black female poet.
Over all Phillis Wheatly was an amazing poet and an amazing woman all together. She went through many hard times through her life. She had to deal with being taken to be sold as a slave, racism, and loosing her children. Amazingly she had people to back her up such as the Wheatly’s. They gave her a chance to live life as normal as she could and gave her a better life than she would have had otherwise.