Phillis Wheatley: America's First Published Black Poet

 by Becky Cleary

Phillis Wheatley was the first African American author to have a book of poetry published in Britain and America. Phillis Wheatley was a well-known poet and was invited to meet George Washington after sending him one of the poems she had written about the Continental Army commander. By publishing “Poems on various subjects”, Wheatley became the first African American, the first American enslaved person and the third American woman to publish a book of poems. 

Born around 1753 in Africa, Wheatley was enslaved in 1761 and sold to prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley and his family. The Wheatleys recognised the young girl’s intelligence, and taught her how to read and write. Wheatley was soon surrounded by the works of John Milton, Alexander Pope and classics such as Virgil, Ovid and Homer. Wheatley’s poems were generally written in rhyming couplets and iambic pentameter and were greatly influenced by her interest in both the Bible and her knowledge of classical literature.

Wheatley published her first poem - “On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin” - in the Newport Mercury aged thirteen. Wheatley became well known in 1771, however, when her poem, Whitefield Elegy, was published as a pamphlet and broadside in Boston, Philadelphia and Newport. By the time she was 18, Wheatley had a collection of 28 poems, and was internationally renowned for her works. Needless to say, Wheatley had become incredibly successful. However, her later life was not as prosperous.

Phillis Wheatley was formally freed by the Wheatley after the publication of her book in 1773 and married John Peters, a freed grocer, in 1778, but it started going downhill from there. Wheatley and Peters had three children, all of whom died in their infancy, Peters was imprisoned for debt in 1784 and Wheatley died later that year aged 31, their third and final child passing away shortly after.

So, despite her success and arguable fame in her youth, Phillis Wheatley ended her life in poverty. It is a sad story to say the least, but her works were incredibly influential and it is believed that in her lifetime, Wheatley wrote around 145 poems.