Phillis Wheatley
Frontispiece, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," 1773, by Phillis Wheatley, 1773 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)
Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753–1784) was the first African American woman writer to be published. Born in Africa, Phillis was captured and sold into slavery as a child. She was purchased by John Wheatley of Boston in 1761. Wheatley proved herself a prodigy, rapidly mastering English and learning Latin, history, and literature, while also publishing poems in New England periodicals from the age of thirteen. By 1773 she was something of a celebrity, publishing Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in London and making a literary tour to England that summer, moving John Wheatley to free her from slavery.
She was a supporter of American independence and wrote to George Washington and other important figures. Wheatley’s life, sadly, wound down to a tragic and premature ending. She endured an unhappy marriage, poverty, and illness before dying in 1784, scarcely aged 30.
