On This Day in History: October 18

Enslaved girl Phillis Wheatley becomes a famous poet

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Phillis Wheatley, despite being immensely intelligent and talented, died young and poor, because America is only the land of opportunity for a select few.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: October 18, 1773--

She was born in West Africa around 1753 and sold into slavery when she was about seven years old. The little girl was chained for several weeks in the hold of a reeking, disease-filled ship crossing the Atlantic and fed only scraps, to become the property of another person. That’s what she endured.

She landed in Massachusetts in 1761 aboard the slavery ship Phillis, from which her enslaved name was assigned to her. There, she was sold to a prosperous merchant named John Wheatley, and her enslaved surname was added.

John bought her as a servant for his wife Susanna “for a trifle,” as she was “slender” and “frail.” And as far as enslavers go, the family didn’t completely suck as human beings. The couple’s two children, Mary and Nathaniel, who were both in their teens, took on young Phillis’s education. It was unheard of for a Black enslaved girl to learn to read, but by age 12 Phillis could read Greek and Latin classics in their original languages. They immersed her in studies of geography, astronomy, and history as well.

When she was 14, she wrote what was likely her first poem, “To the University of Cambridge, in New-England.” The poem relayed a yearning for a life of academia and intellectual challenge.

She wrote several more poems, but American publishers were not interested in a book; many believed she could not have possibly authored them. And so, Nathaniel traveled with her to London to find a publisher. In 1773, when she was about 20, Phillis met with prominent members of British society, and on September 1 her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published. With publication the Wheatleys realized they could no longer keep her as an enslaved person, and on October 18, 1773, she was emancipated.

But that is where the “happy” tale ends. Despite talent and intelligence, America was no land of opportunity for one of her color and gender. She married a free Black grocer when she was 25, but they lived in poverty and two of their babies died. Her husband was sent to debtors’ prison and she was left alone to raise a third child who was also sickly. To survive she worked as a scullery maid, but became ill and died at the age of 31. Her infant child died soon after.

Modern Black scholars proclaimed her poetry suffered from “Uncle Tom Syndrome;” it lacked awareness of her identity as a Black enslaved person. Other than the horrid trip from Africa, Phillis was not treated as other enslaved. She was molded by her owners to become a person they could control and display to white society as non-threatening.

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