Phillis Wheatley

Image:Old South Meetinghouse BW.jpg{{Citation |publisher = University of Arkansas Press |title = The Other Brahmins: Boston's Black Upper Class, 1750–1950 |first = Adelaide M. |last = Cromwell |author-link = Adelaide M. Cromwell |date = 1994 |ol= 1430545M }}]]

Although the date and place of her birth are not documented, scholars believe that Wheatley was born in 1753 in West Africa, most likely in present-day Gambia or Senegal.Carretta, Vincent. Complete Writings by Phillis Wheatley, New York: Penguin Books, 2001. She was sold by a local chief to a visiting trader, who took her to Boston in the then British Colony of Massachusetts, on July 11, 1761,Odell, Margaretta M. Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave, Boston: Geo. W. Light, 1834. on a slave ship called The Phillis.Doak, Robin S. Phillis Wheatley: Slave and Poet, Minneapolis: Compass Point Books, 2007.{{ISBN?}} The vessel was owned by Timothy Fitch and captained by Peter Gwinn.

On arrival in Boston, Wheatley was bought by the wealthy Boston merchant and tailor John Wheatley as a slave for his wife Susanna. The Wheatleys named her Phillis, after the ship that had transported her to North America. She was given their last name of Wheatley, as was a common custom if any surname was used for enslaved people.{{cite journal

|journal=American Archivist

|title=A Perspective on Indexing Slaves' Names

|first=David E.

|last=Paterson

|volume=64

|date=Spring–Summer 2001

|pages=132–142|doi=10.17723/aarc.64.1.th18g8t6282h4283

|doi-access=free

}}

The Wheatleys' 18-year-old daughter, Mary, was Phillis's first tutor in reading and writing. Their son, Nathaniel, also tutored her. John Wheatley was known as a progressive throughout New England; his family afforded Phillis an unprecedented education for an enslaved person, and one unusual for a woman of any race at the time. By the age of 12, Phillis was reading Greek and Latin classics in their original languages, as well as difficult passages from the Bible.See Barbara Salmon, In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (1985), p.5, and "Phillis Wheatley, in Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phillis-Wheaatley. At the age of 14, she wrote her first poem, "To the University of Cambridge [Harvard], in New England".{{cite book|last1=Brown|first1=Sterling |author-link1=Sterling Allen Brown |title=Negro Poetry and Drama|date=1937|publisher=Westphalia Press|location=Washington, DC|isbn=1935907549}}{{Cite book|title = Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral|last = Wheatley|first = Phillis|publisher = W.H. Lawrence|year = 1887|location = Denver, Colorado|pages = [https://archive.org/details/poemsonvarioussu00whea_0/page/120 120]|url = https://archive.org/details/poemsonvarioussu00whea_0|access-date = February 29, 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161115224718/https://archive.org/details/poemsonvarioussu00whea_0|archive-date = November 15, 2016|url-status = live}}

Recognizing her literary ability, the Wheatley family supported Phillis's education and left household labor to their other domestic enslaved workers. The Wheatleys often exhibited Phillis's abilities to friends and family. Strongly influenced by her readings of the works of Alexander Pope, John Milton, Homer, Horace and Virgil, Phillis began to write poetry.{{cite book|last1=White|first1=Deborah|title=Freedom on My Mind|date=2015|publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's|location=Boston/New York|isbn=978-0-312-64883-1|page=145}}

In 1773, at the age of 20, Phillis accompanied Nathaniel Wheatley to London in part for her health (she suffered from chronic asthma), but primarily because Susanna believed Phillis would have a better chance of publishing her book of poems there than in the colonies.{{cite book|title=Portraits of American Women: From Settlement to the Present|url=https://archive.org/details/portraitsofameri00gjba_0|url-access=registration|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/portraitsofameri00gjba_0/page/106 106]|first=Charles |last=Scruggs|chapter=Phillis Wheatley|isbn=978-0-19-512048-6|editor-first=G. J. |editor-last=Barker-Benfield}} Phillis had an audience with Frederick Bull, who was the Lord Mayor of London, and other prominent members of British society. (An audience with King George III was arranged, but Phillis had returned to Boston before it could take place.) Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, became interested in the talented young African woman and subsidized the publication of Wheatley's volume of poems, which appeared in London in the summer of 1773. As Hastings was ill, the two never met.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gVl_Huh7FbMC |title=Love of Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England |year=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York |first1=Catherine |last1=Adams |first2=Elizabeth H. |last2=Pleck |isbn=978-0-19-538908-1}}{{page needed|date=August 2020}}

After Phillis's book was published, by November 1773, the Wheatleys manumitted Phillis. Susanna Wheatley died in the spring of 1774, and John in 1778. Shortly after, Phillis met and married John Peters, an impoverished free black grocer. They lived in poor conditions and two of their babies died.{{cite book|title=A Shining Thread of Hope|year=2009|publisher=Random House|location=New York|page=26 |first1=Darlene Clark |last1=Hine |first2=Kathleen |last2=Thompson|author-link=Darlene Clark Hine|author2-link=Kathleen Thompson |isbn=978-0-7679-0110-9}}

John was improvident and was imprisoned for debt in 1784. With a sickly infant son to provide for, Phillis became a scullery maid at a boarding house, doing work she had never done before; she developed pneumonia{{Cite web |title=Later Life and Death |url=http://www.phillis-wheatley.org/later-life-death/ |access-date=2023-09-21 |website=www.phillis-wheatley.org}} and died on December 5, 1784, at the age of 31,{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers, Volume 1|page=611|chapter=Phillis Wheatley|editor=Page|year=2007 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-34123-6}} after giving birth to a daughter, who died the same day as her.

Wheatley wrote a letter to Reverend Samson Occom, commending him on his ideas and beliefs stating that enslaved people should be given their natural-born rights in America.See Saundra O'Neale, "Challenge to Wheatley's Critics: 'There Was no Other Game in Town,' Journal of Negro Education, vol. 54, 500, 503 (1985). Wheatley also exchanged letters with the British philanthropist John Thornton, who discussed Wheatley and her poetry in correspondence with John Newton.{{cite journal|last1=Bilbro|first1=Jeffrey|title=Who are lost and how they're found: redemption and theodicy in Wheatley, Newton, and Cowper|journal=Early American Literature|date=Fall 2012|volume=47|issue=3|pages=570–575|doi=10.1353/eal.2012.0054|s2cid=162875678}} Through her letter writing, Wheatley was able to express her thoughts, comments and concerns to others.{{cite book|last1=White|title=Freedom On My Mind|date=2015|pages=146–147}}{{ISBN?}}

In 1775, she sent a copy of a poem entitled "To His Excellency, George Washington" to the then-military general. The following year, Washington invited Wheatley to visit him at his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.{{cite book|last=Grizzard|first=Frank E. |author-link=Frank E. Grizzard Jr. |title=George Washington: A Biographical Companion|year=2002|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Greenwood, CT|page=349}}{{ISBN?}} Thomas Paine republished the poem in The Pennsylvania Gazette in April 1776.{{cite book|title=Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century|year=2013|publisher=University of Kentucky Press|location=Louisville|page=70|editor-first=Vincent |editor-last=Carretta |isbn=978-0-8131-4408-5}}

In 1779, Wheatley issued a proposal for a second volume of poems but was unable to publish it because she had lost her patrons after her emancipation; publication of books was often based on gaining subscriptions for guaranteed sales beforehand. The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was also a factor. However, some of her poems that were to be included in the second volume were later published in pamphlets and newspapers.{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers, Volume 1|year=2007|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, CT|page=610|chapter=Phillis Wheatley |editor-first=Yolanda Williams |editor-last=Page |isbn=978-0-313-34123-6}}

{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage =210px

| video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wM8Jf0TdXo "On Being Brought from Africa To America by Phillis Wheatley; Narrated by Teyuna T Darris"], 0:47, July 8, 2015, GoodPoetry.org.{{cite web |url =https://letterpile.com/poetry/Analysis-of-Poem-On-Being-Brought-From-Africa-to-America-by-Phillis-Wheatley |title =Analysis of Poem 'On Being Brought From Africa to America' by Phillis Wheatley |first=Andrew |last=Spacey |work =LetterPile |date =2017-03-12 |access-date =June 17, 2017 |archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20171013064832/https://letterpile.com/poetry/Analysis-of-Poem-On-Being-Brought-From-Africa-to-America-by-Phillis-Wheatley | archive-date =October 13, 2017 | url-status =live }} }}

In 1768, Wheatley wrote "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty", in which she praised King George III for repealing the Stamp Act. But while discussing the idea of freedom, Wheatley was able subtly to raise the idea of freedom for enslaved subjects of the king as well:

{{blockquote|

May George, beloved by all the nations round,

Live with heav’ns choicest constant blessings crown’d!

Great God, direct, and guard him from on high,

And from his head let ev’ry evil fly!

And may each clime with equal gladness see

A monarch’s smile can set his subjects free![https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/409/pg409-images.html#link2H_4_0007 POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL By Phillis Wheatley]

}}

As the American Revolution gained strength, Wheatley's writing turned to themes that expressed ideas of the rebellious colonists.

In 1770, she wrote a poetic tribute to the evangelist George Whitefield. Her poetry expressed Christian themes, and many poems were dedicated to famous figures. Over one-third consist of elegies, the remainder being on religious, classical and abstract themes.[http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/treasures/american/wheatley.html Phillis Wheatley] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131100804/http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/treasures/american/wheatley.html |date=January 31, 2011 }} page, comments on Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, University of Delaware. Retrieved October 5, 2007. She seldom referred to her own life in her poems. One example of a poem on slavery is "On being brought from Africa to America":[http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Wheatley/brought.html "On Being Brought from Africa to America".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130716142457/http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Wheatley/brought.html |date=July 16, 2013 }}, Web Texts, Virginia Commonwealth University

{{blockquote|

Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

"Their colour is a diabolic dye."

Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,

May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

}}

File:Houghton AC85.Aℓ245.Zy773w - Wheatley, title page.jpg, 1773]]

Many colonists found it difficult to believe that an African slave was writing "excellent" poetry. Wheatley had to defend her authorship of her poetry in court in 1772.{{cite book |editor-first1=Henry Louis Jr. |editor-last1=Gates |editor-link1=Henry Louis Gates Jr. |editor-first2=Anthony |editor-last2=Appiah |editor-link2=Kwame Anthony Appiah |title=Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience |publisher=Basic Civitas Books |date=1999 |page=1171 |isbn=978-0-465-00071-5}} Gates tells the story of this "trial" at length in his book and lecture cited in note 2 above.Ellis Cashmore, review of The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature, Nellie Y. McKay and Henry Louis Gates, eds, New Statesman, April 25, 1997. She was examined by a group of Boston luminaries, including John Erving, Reverend Charles Chauncey, John Hancock, Thomas Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts, and his lieutenant governor Andrew Oliver. They concluded she had written the poems ascribed to her and signed an attestation, which was included in the preface of her book of collected works: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, published in London in 1773. Publishers in Boston had declined to publish it, but her work was of great interest to influential people in London.

There, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon and the Earl of Dartmouth acted as patrons to help Wheatley gain publication. Her poetry received comment in The London Magazine in 1773, which published her poem "Hymn to the Morning" as a specimen of her work, writing: "[t]hese poems display no astonishing power of genius; but when we consider them as the productions of a young untutored African, who wrote them after six months casual study of the English language and of writing, we cannot suppress our admiration of talents so vigorous and lively."{{Cite journal|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015021278604;view=1up;seq=520|title=The London magazine, or, Gentleman's monthly intelligencer 1773.|website=HathiTrust|pages=4 v|language=en|access-date=August 2, 2018}} Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was printed in 11 editions until 1816.{{cite book |author-link=Margaret Busby |last=Busby |first=Margaret |chapter=Phillis Wheatley |title=Daughters of Africa |location=London |publisher=Jonathan Cape |date=1992 |page=18 |isbn=978-0-224-03592-7}}

In 1778, the African-American poet Jupiter Hammon wrote an ode to Wheatley ("An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley").{{cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52292/an-address-to-miss-phillis-wheatley|title=An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley |first=Jupiter |last=Hammon |author-link=Jupiter Hammon |website=Poetry Foundation|access-date=March 22, 2021}} His master Lloyd had temporarily moved with his slaves to Hartford, Connecticut, during the Revolutionary War. Hammon thought that Wheatley had succumbed to what he believed were pagan influences in her writing, and so his "Address" consisted of 21 rhyming quatrains, each accompanied by a related Bible verse, that he thought would compel Wheatley to return to a Christian path in life.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americannational09garr/page/950/mode/2up?q=jupiter |last=Faherty |first=Duncan F. |chapter=Hammon, Jupiter |title=American National Biography Online |year=2000 |chapter-url-access=registration |doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1600706}}

In 1838, Boston-based publisher and abolitionist Isaac Knapp published a collection of Wheatley's poetry, along with that of enslaved North Carolina poet George Moses Horton, under the title Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, A Native African and a Slave. Also, Poems by a Slave.Cavitch, Max. American Elegy: The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007: 193. {{ISBN|978-0-8166-4892-4}}. Wheatley's memoir was earlier published in 1834 by Geo W. Light but did not include poems by Horton.

Thomas Jefferson, in his book Notes on the State of Virginia, was unwilling to acknowledge the value of her work or the work of any black poet. He wrote:

Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately {{sic}} but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.For the written text, see "Jefferson's 'Notes on the State of Virginia,' https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h490t.html{{Cite web|last=Jefferson|first=Thomas|date=1781|title=Notes on the State of Virginia|url=https://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/documents/frame_ih198156.htm|website=PBS|page=234}}

Wheatley believed that the power of poetry was immeasurable.Shields, John C. "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 Phillis Wheatley's Use of Classicism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409174457/http://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 |date=April 9, 2016 }}, American Literature 52.1 (1980): 97–111. Retrieved November 2, 2009, p. 101. John C. Shields, noting that her poetry did not simply reflect the literature she read but was based on her personal ideas and beliefs, writes:

Wheatley had more in mind than simple conformity. It will be shown later that her allusions to the sun god and to the goddess of the morn, always appearing as they do here in close association with her quest for poetic inspiration, are of central importance to her.

This poem is arranged into three stanzas of four lines in iambic tetrameter, followed by a concluding couplet in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC.Shields, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 "Phillis Wheatley's Use of Classicism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409174457/http://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 |date=April 9, 2016 }}, American Literature 52.1 (1980), p. 100. Shields sums up her writing as being "contemplative and reflective rather than brilliant and shimmering."

She repeated three primary elements: Christianity, classicism and hierophantic solar worship.Shields, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 "Phillis Wheatley's Use of Classicism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409174457/http://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 |date=April 9, 2016 }}, American Literature 52.1 (1980), p. 103. The hierophantic solar worship was part of what she brought with her from Africa; the worship of sun gods is expressed as part of her African culture, which may be why she used so many different words for the sun. For instance, she uses Aurora eight times, "Apollo seven, Phoebus twelve, and Sol twice." Shields believes that the word "light" is significant to her as it marks her African history, a past that she has left physically behind. He notes that Sun is a homonym for Son, and that Wheatley intended a double reference to Christ. Wheatley also refers to "heav'nly muse" in two of her poems: "To a Clergy Man on the Death of his Lady" and "Isaiah LXIII," signifying her idea of the Christian deity.Shields, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 "Phillis Wheatley's Use of Classicism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409174457/http://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 |date=April 9, 2016 }}, American Literature 52.1 (1980), p. 102.

Classical allusions are prominent in Wheatley's poetry, which Shields argues set her work apart from that of her contemporaries: "Wheatley's use of classicism distinguishes her work as original and unique and deserves extended treatment."Shields, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 "Phillis Wheatley's Use of Classicism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409174457/http://www.jstor.org/stable/2925190?seq=5 |date=April 9, 2016 }}, American Literature 52.1 (1980), p. 98. Particularly extended engagement with the Classics can be found in the poem "To Maecenas", where Wheatley uses references to Maecenas to depict the relationship between her and her own patrons,{{cite book |last=Greenwood |first=Emily |author-link=Emily Greenwood |editor-last1=Hall |editor-first1=Edith |editor-link=Edith Hall |editor-last2=McConnell |editor-first2=Justine |editor-last3=Alston |editor-first3=Richard |title=Ancient Slavery and Abolition. From Hobbes to Hollywood |publisher=OUP |date=January 1, 2011 |pages=153–180 |chapter=Chapter 6: The Politics of Classicism in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley |isbn=9780199574674}}{{rp|168–728}} as well as making reference to Achilles and Patroclus, Homer and Virgil.{{rp|167}} At the same time, Wheatley indicates to the complexity of her relationship with Classical texts by pointing to the sole example of Terence as an ancestor for her works:

{{Poem quote|The happier Terence all the choir inspir'd,

His soul replenish'd, and his bosom fir'd;

But say, ye Muses, why this partial grace,

To one alone of Afric's sable race;{{rp|168}}}}

While some scholars have argued that Wheatley's allusions to classical material are based on the reading of other neoclassical poetry (such as the works of Alexander Pope), Emily Greenwood has demonstrated that Wheatley's work demonstrates persistent linguistic engagement with Latin texts, suggesting good familiarity with the ancient works themselves.{{rp|159–162}} Both Shields and Greenwood have argued that Wheatley's use of classical imagery and ideas was designed to deliver "subversive" messages to her educated, majority white audience, and argue for the freedom of Wheatley herself and other enslaved people.{{rp|170–172}}{{cite journal |last1=Shields |first1=John C. |title=Phillis Wheatley's Subversion of Classical Stylistics |journal=Style |date=1993 |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=252–270 |jstor=42946040 |issn=0039-4238 }}{{rp|252}}

Black literary scholars from the 1960s to the present in critiquing Wheatley's writing have noted the absence in it of her sense of identity as a black enslaved person.{{Cite book|last=Reising, Russell.|title=Loose ends : closure and crisis in the American social text|date=1996|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=0-8223-1891-1|location=Durham, N.C.|oclc=34875703}}Matson, R. Lynn. "Phillis Wheatley--Soul Sister?." Phylon 33, no. 3 (1972): 222-230. At the same time, Matson notes that Wheatley was hindered by her tenuous social position and concludes that if Wheatley "is not exactly a soul sister, she is certainly a distant relative." Id. at 230. A number of black literary scholars have viewed her work—and its widespread admiration—as a barrier to the development of black people during her time and as a prime example of Uncle Tom syndrome, believing that Wheatley's lack of awareness of her condition of enslavement furthers this syndrome among descendants of Africans in the Americas. However, others, more recently, have argued on her behalf. O'Neal notes that Wheatley "was a strong force among contemporary abolitionist writers, and that, through the use of Biblical imagery, she incorporated anti-slavery statements in her work within the confines of her era and her position as a slave."See O'Neal, note 20 above at p. 500. O'Neal goes on note that Wheatley's critics "do not suggest what alternative tactics could be expected from writers who were also slaves. In fact, no historical records as yet have shown a slave of the Revolutionary era who made--by the measure of today's standard--militant, outspoken anti-slavery statments in America's public media." Id. at 510. Chernoh Sesay, Jr. sees a trend towards a more balanced view of Wheatley, looking at her "not in twentieth century terms, but instead according to the conditions of the eighteenth century,"Chernoh Sesay, Jr., "Remembering Phillis Wheatley," Black Perspectives (June 26, 2016), https://aaihs.org/remembering-phillis-wheatley and Henry Louis Gates has argued for her rehabilitation, asking "What would happen if we ceased to stereotype Wheatley but, instead, read her, read her with all the resourcefulness that she herself brought to her craft?"Gates, note 2 above pp. 87-88.

Some scholars thought Wheatley's perspective came from her upbringing. Writing in 1974, Eleanor Smith argued that the Wheatley family took interest in her at a young age because of her timid and submissive nature.{{Cite journal|last=Smith|first=Eleanor|date=1974|title=Phillis Wheatley: A Black Perspective|journal=The Journal of Negro Education |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=401–407 |doi=10.2307/2966531|jstor=2966531}} Using this to their advantage, the Wheatley family was able to mold and shape her into a person of their liking. The family separated her from other slaves in the home and she was prevented from doing anything other than very light housework. This shaping prevented Phillis from ever becoming a threat to the Wheatley family or other people from the white community. As a result, Phillis was allowed to attend white social events and this created a misconception of the relationship between black and white people for her.

The matter of Wheatley's biography, "a white woman's memoir", has been a subject of investigation. In 2020, American poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers published her The Age of Phillis, based on the understanding that Margaretta Matilda Odell's account of Wheatley's life portrayed Wheatley inaccurately, and as a character in a sentimental novel; the poems by Jeffers attempt to fill in the gaps and recreate a more realistic portrait of Wheatley.{{cite news |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/how-phillis-wheatley-was-recovered-through-history |title=How Phillis Wheatley Was Recovered Through History: For decades, a white woman's memoir shaped our understanding of America's first Black poet. Does a new book change the story? |first=Elizabeth |last=Winkler |date=July 30, 2020 |accessdate=February 11, 2021 |newspaper=The New Yorker}}

File:Phyllis Wheatley YWCA - Washington, D.C..jpg in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C.]]

With the 1773 publication of Wheatley's book Poems on Various Subjects, she "became the most famous African on the face of the earth."Gates, The Trials of Phillis Wheatley, p. 33. Voltaire stated in a letter to a friend that Wheatley had proved that black people could write poetry. John Paul Jones asked a fellow officer to deliver some of his personal writings to "Phillis the African favorite of the Nine (muses) and Apollo." She was honored by many of America's founding fathers, including George Washington, who wrote to her (after she wrote a poem in his honor) that "the style and manner [of your poetry] exhibit a striking proof of your great poetical Talents."[http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw040306)) "George Washington to Phillis Wheatley, February 28, 1776"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190208075845/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem%2Fmgw%3A%40field%28DOCID+%40lit%28gw040306%29%29 |date=February 8, 2019 }}. The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741–1799.

Critics consider her work fundamental to the genre of African-American literature, and she is honored as the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry and the first to make a living from her writing.{{Cite web |url=http://www.lkwdpl.org/WIHOHIO/whea-phi.htm |title=Lakewood Public Library. |access-date=March 29, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090328150242/http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/whea-phi.htm |archive-date=March 28, 2009 |url-status=live }}

• In 2002, the scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Phillis Wheatley as one of his 100 Greatest African Americans.Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia, New York: Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|1-57392-963-8}}.
• Wheatley is featured, along with Abigail Adams and Lucy Stone, in the Boston Women's Memorial, a 2003 sculpture on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts.
• In 2012, Robert Morris University named the new building for their School of Communications and Information Sciences after Phillis Wheatley.Linda Wilson Fuoco, [http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-west/dual-success-robert-morris-opens-building-reaches-fundraising-goal-655067/ "Dual success: Robert Morris opens building, reaches fundraising goal"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121113172438/http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-west/dual-success-robert-morris-opens-building-reaches-fundraising-goal-655067/ |date=November 13, 2012 }}, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 27, 2012.
• Wheatley Hall at UMass Boston is named for Phillis Wheatley.{{cite web|title=UMass Boston Professors to Discuss Phillis Wheatley Saturday Before Theater Performance|first=Colleen|last=Locke|date=February 11, 2016|url=https://www.umb.edu/news/detail/umass_boston_professors_to_discuss_phillis_wheatley_saturday|website=UMass Boston News|access-date=March 8, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308194725/https://www.umb.edu/news/detail/umass_boston_professors_to_discuss_phillis_wheatley_saturday|archive-date=March 8, 2016|url-status=live}}

In 1892 a Phyllis Wheatley Circle was formed in Greenville, Mississippi.{{cite book

|accessdate=June 1, 2021

|title=Historical Records of Conventions of 1895–96 of the Colored Women of America

|year=1902

|url=https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/ead/pdf/ibwells-0009-006.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/ead/pdf/ibwells-0009-006.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live}}{{rp|72}} and in 1896 the Phyllis Wheatley Circle.{{rp|108}}

She is commemorated on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.{{cite web|title=Phillis Wheatley|url=http://bwht.org/phillis-wheatley/|website=Boston Women's Heritage Trail|access-date=January 12, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160106022050/http://bwht.org/phillis-wheatley/|archive-date=January 6, 2016|url-status=live}} The Phyllis Wheatley YWCA in Washington, D.C., and the Phillis Wheatley High School in Houston, Texas, are named for her, as are the Phyllis Wheatley School in Apopka, Florida, and the historic Phillis Wheatley School in Jensen Beach, Florida, now the oldest building on the campus of American Legion Post 126 (Jensen Beach, Florida). A branch of the Richland County Library in Columbia, South Carolina, which offered the first library services to black citizens, is named for her. A branch of the Rochester Public Library system in Rochester, New York was named for her when it was built in 1971.{{Cite web |title=City of Rochester |url=https://cityofrochester.gov/article.aspx?id=21474848224 |access-date=2023-12-17 |website=cityofrochester.gov}} Phillis Wheatley Elementary School, New Orleans, opened in 1954 in Tremé, one of the oldest African-American neighborhoods in the US. The Phillis Wheatley Community Center opened in 1920 in Greenville, South Carolina, and in 1924 (spelled "Phyllis") in Minneapolis, Minnesota.{{cite web|url=https://philliswheatleysc.org/about-us/|title=About Us|access-date=November 23, 2020|publisher=Phillis Wheatley Community Center}}{{cite web|url=https://www.phylliswheatley.org/history/|title=History|access-date=November 23, 2020|publisher=Phyllis Wheatley Community Center}}

On July 16, 2019, at the London site where A. Bell Booksellers published Wheatley's first book in September 1773 (8 Aldgate, now the location of the Dorsett City Hotel), the unveiling took place of a commemorative blue plaque honoring her, organized by the Nubian Jak Community Trust and Black History Walks.[https://seancreighton1947.wordpress.com/2019/07/05/nubian-jak-unveils-plaque-to-phillis-wheatley-16-july/ "Nubian Jak unveils plaque to Phillis Wheatley 16 July"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190719190303/https://seancreighton1947.wordpress.com/2019/07/05/nubian-jak-unveils-plaque-to-phillis-wheatley-16-july/ |date=July 19, 2019 }}, History & Social Action News and Events, July 5, 2019.Ladimeji, Dapo, [https://african-century.org/phyllis-wheatley-blue-plaque-unveiling-16-july-2019/ "Phyllis Wheatley – blue plaque unveiling 16 July 2019"], African Century Journal, July 16, 2019.

Wheatley is the subject of a project and play by British-Nigerian writer Ade Solanke entitled Phillis in London, which was showcased at the Greenwich Book Festival in June 2018.[https://www.gre.ac.uk/news/articles/public-relations/2018/students-meet-literary-world-at-greenwich-book-festival "Students meet literary world at Greenwich Book Festival"], News, University of Greenwich, June 14, 2018. A 90-minute play by Solanke titled Phillis in Boston was presented at the Old South Meeting House in November 2023.[https://revolutionaryspaces.org/explore/upcoming-programs/phillis-in-boston/ "Revolutionary Spaces, Phillis in Boston"], Nov 1, 2023.

A 30-item collection of material related to Wheatley, including publications from her lifetime containing poems by her, was acquired by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2023.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/26/arts/phillis-wheatley-smithsonian.html|title=Smithsonian Acquires Major Collection About Enslaved Poet|newspaper=The New York Times|first= Jennifer|last=Schuessler|date=September 26, 2023}}

Wheatley was featured in "Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition"{{Cite web |title=Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition |url=https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/exhibitions/rise-up |website=Fitzwilliam Museum |publisher=University of Cambridge |date=2025 |access-date=February 17, 2025}} at the Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge University during 2025, which told the stories of abolitionists such as Wheatley.

• African-American literature
• AALBC.com
• Elijah McCoy
• List of 18th-century British working-class writers
• Phillis Wheatley Club
• Slave narrative

{{Reflist|30em}}

; Primary materials

• Wheatley, Phillis (1988). John C. Shields, ed. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-506085-7}}
• Wheatley, Phillis (2001). Vincent Carretta, ed. Complete Writings. New York: Penguin Books. {{ISBN|0-14-042430-X}}

; Biographies

• Borland, Kathryn Kilby and Speicher, Helen Ross (1968). Phillis Wheatley: Young Colonial Poet. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
• Carretta, Vincent (2011). Phillis Wheatley: Biography of A Genius in Bondage. Athens: University of Georgia Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8203-3338-0}}
• Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (2003). The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers, New York: Basic Civitas Books. {{ISBN|978-0-465-01850-5}}
• Richmond, M. A. (1988). Phillis Wheatley. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. {{ISBN|1-55546-683-4}}
• Waldstreicher, David (2023). The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. {{ISBN|9780809098248}}. [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/books/phillis-wheatley-david-waldstreicher.html?searchResultPosition=1 Review]

; Secondary materials

• Abcarian, Richard and Marvin Klotz. "Phillis Wheatley," In Literature: The Human Experience, 9th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006: p. 1606. {{ISBN?}}
• Barker-Benfield, Graham J. Phillis Wheatley Chooses Freedom: History, Poetry, and the Ideals of the American Revolution (NYU Press, 2018).{{ISBN?}}
• Bassard, Katherine Clay (1999). Spiritual Interrogations: Culture, Gender, and Community in Early African American Women's Writing. Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|0-691-01639-9}}
• {{cite web |title=Phillis Wheatley: The unsung Black poet who shaped the US |website=BBC Rediscovering America |author-first=Robin |author-last=Catalano |date=21 Feb 2023 |url=https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230220-phillis-wheatley-the-unsung-black-poet-who-shaped-the-us}}
• Chowdhury, Rowshan Jahan. "Restriction, Resistance, and Humility: A Feminist Approach to Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley’s Literary Works." Crossings 10 (2019) 47–56 [https://sah.ulab.edu.bd/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/09/Crossings_Vol10_2019.pdf#page=48 online]
• Engberg, Kathrynn Seidler, The Right to Write: The Literary Politics of Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 2009. {{ISBN|978-0-761-84609-3}}
• Langley, April C. E. (2008). The Black Aesthetic Unbound: Theorizing the Dilemma of Eighteenth-century African American Literature. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8142-1077-2}}
• Ogude, S. E. (1983). Genius in Bondage: A Study of the Origins of African Literature in English. Ile-Ife, Nigeria: University of Ife Press. {{ISBN|978-136-048-8}}
• Reising, Russel J. (1996). Loose Ends: Closure and Crisis in the American Social Text. Durham: Duke University Press. {{ISBN|0-8223-1887-3}}
• Robinson, William Henry (1981). Phillis Wheatley: A Bio-bibliography. Boston: GK Hall. {{ISBN|0-8161-8318-X}}
• Robinson, William Henry (1982). Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley. Boston: GK Hall. {{ISBN|0-8161-8336-8}}
• Robinson, William Henry (1984). Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings. New York: Garland. {{ISBN|0-8240-9346-1}}
• Shockley, Ann Allen (1988). Afro-American Women Writers, 1746–1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide. Boston: GK Hall. {{ISBN|0-452-00981-2}}
• Waldstreicher, David. "The Wheatleyan Moment." Early American Studies (2011): 522–551. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23546668 online]
• Waldstreicher, David. "Ancients, Moderns, and Africans: Phillis Wheatley and the Politics of Empire and Slavery in the American Revolution." Journal of the Early Republic 37.4 (2017): 701–733. [https://jer.pennpress.org/media/86416/JER-374-Final-Text-WALDSTREICHER.pdf online]
• Zuck, Rochelle Raineri. "Poetic Economics: Phillis Wheatley and the Production of the Black Artist in the Early Atlantic World." Ethnic Studies Review 33.2 (2010): 143–168 [https://online.ucpress.edu/esr/article-pdf/33/2/143/107687/esr_2010_33_2_143.pdf online].

; Poetry (inspired by Wheatley)

• Clarke, Alison (2020). Phillis. University of Calgary Press. {{ISBN|978-1-773-85135-8}}
• Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne (2020). The Age of Phillis. Wesleyan University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-819-57949-2}}

{{Wikisource author}}

{{wikiquote}}

{{commons category}}

{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=24620908}}

• {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/phillis-wheatley}}
• {{Gutenberg author |id=227| name=Phillis Wheatley}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Phillis Wheatley}}
• {{Librivox author |id=333}}
• {{OL author|588695A}}
• [https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-wheatley "Phillis Wheatley"] National Women's History Museum
• [https://rose.library.emory.edu/ Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library], Emory University: [http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/901bs Phillis Wheatley collection, 1757–1773]

{{Boston African American community pre-Civil War}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheatley, Phillis}}

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