Phillis Wheatley [From “Black In America”]
Phillis Wheatley
On Being Brought from Africa to America
The first author of African descent to publish a book of poetry in English, Phillis Wheatley was born in what is now The Gambia, West Africa, and was kidnapped by slave traders when she was six or seven years old. She was purchased by John and Susanna Wheatley, an evangelical Boston couple who named her Phillis, after the slave ship that brought her to America, and taught her to read in English. Wheatley soon taught herself to write in English as well, publishing her first poem in a Rhode Island newspaper when she was a young teenager and quickly gaining a transatlantic readership; a collection of her poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, was published in London in 1773. A deeply religious poet, Wheatley was praised in her time by Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. The popularity of her collection led to pressure on her enslavers to free her, which they did later in 1773. With her poetry, Wheatley affirmed her own personhood and challenged Western cultures racist beliefs about the inferiority of people of African descent. She is today recognized as a founding author of the African American literary tradition.
On Being Brought from Africa to America, written when Wheatley was around fifteen, was published in Poems on Various Subjects and has become one of Wheatleys most famousand most controversialpoems. Like many other of her poems, as well as many of her letters, the poem addresses both Wheatleys religious faith and her experience of slavery and the slave trade, although how best to interpret the poems discussion of this experience remains a topic of debate.
Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That theres a God, that theres a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable1 race with scornful eye,
Their colour is a diabolic dye.
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,2
May be refined and join th angelic train.3
(1773)
Questions
1. In your own words, how would you characterize or paraphrase this poems perspective on slavery and anti-Black racism? (Keep in mind that Wheatley was still enslaved when she wrote and published this poem.)
2. What does Wheatley seem to mean by her statement that Black people may be refined? What might refinement mean for her?
a. To what extent do you think the poems affirmation that Black people are capable of being refined is a refutation of anti-Black racism? Why or why not?
b. How might Wheatleys poem itself have functioned at the time of its publication as evidence for Black peoples capacity for refinement?
3. One scholar of Wheatley has written that she had almost nothing to say about the plight of her people. And if she resented her own ambiguous position in society, she did not express her resentment, while another scholar has described the manifested race pride shown in her poems. On the evidence of this poem, which of these two scholarly characterizations of Wheatley do you agree with more? Why?
4. Consider the form of Wheatleys poem. What is the effect of her treating specific significant events in her lifeher enslavement, her transport to America, and her conversionin such a short, compressed fashion?
5. Read the discussion of Phillis Wheatley in Alice Walkers In Search of Our Mothers Gardens, included elsewhere in this anthology.
a. Based on this poem, to what extent do you agree with Walkers characterization of Wheatley?
b. How might this poem provide evidence for what Walker (quoting Virginia Woolf) calls Wheatleys contrary instincts?
1 sable Dark-skinned.
2 Cain According to the Bible, the oldest son of Adam and Eve, who kills his younger brother, Abel, in Genesis 4. As punishment, God exiles Cain and sets a mark of sin upon him. Some in Wheatleys time believed this mark took the form of darker skin, and attempted to justify slavery on the grounds that Africans were descended from Cain.
3 train Assembly of people.
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