Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753–1784) was an African American poet and the first Black person to publish a book of poetry in English. Born in Senegal, she was captured and enslaved at approximately age seven, arriving in Boston aboard the slave ship Phillis in 1761. The Wheatley family, who purchased her, recognized her extraordinary intellectual abilities and taught her to read and write—extraordinary privileges denied to virtually all enslaved people. She learned Latin, Greek, English literature, and astronomy, and began writing poetry in her early teens. Her poems, which often referenced classical mythology and contemporary events, earned her remarkable recognition in colonial America and Britain. In 1773, her collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London, a watershed moment in American literary history. Wheatley's works addressed themes of freedom, Christianity, and her identity as an African amid the slavery that defined her life. Though she was manumitted in 1778, she died in poverty and obscurity at age 31. Her legacy as a pioneering voice in American literature and as a symbol of Black intellectual achievement remains profoundly important, challenging centuries of racial assumptions about capability and deserving recognition as one of the nation's foundational literary voices.