Why Phillis Wheatley Peters?
Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston from her African homeland in July 1761. Though only about seven or eight years old, she was transported with other captives aboard the ship Phillis as part of an ongoing push to make slavery central to the economies, politics, and daily life in North America. Purchased by a New England merchant, John Wheatley, and “given” to his wife Susanna, the young girl found herself far from her West African home, suddenly immersed in a foreign culture where--however benign the Wheatleys themselves may have viewed their relationship to the young girl--she was, in fact, enslaved.
Though we cannot recover much of Phillis Wheatley’s personal or family history prior to what must have been a terrifying transatlantic journey, we do know reasons why she remarkably became, as a young adolescent, a celebrity author, first in her new “home” city of Boston, and, not long afterwards, internationally. The Wheatleys did provide opportunities for her to develop precocious reading and writing skills. And poems she wrote in honor of various local luminaries garnered so much praise and appreciation that the Wheatleys sought publication for a collection of her writings. Unable to find adequate sponsorship in the US, they turned to the Countess of Huntington in England, where, after a transatlantic crossing surely far different from her earlier experience of the monstrous Middle Passage on a slave ship, the youthful writer saw her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral published in London in 1773.
Throughout the anniversary year of the Poems’ initial publication, and beyond, our project--The Genius of Phillis Wheatley Peters--has honored that occasion. Our project marks 1773 as not only a milestone in literary and historical terms, but also the starting point generating virtually countless cultural legacies. Celebrating Wheatley Peters (including her later life as a wife and mother, as well as her first publication), the programming this project initially presented and continues to commemorate on this website invites critical examination of themes and social issues associated with her remarkable life.
Brief bibliography:
Carretta, Vincent. Phillis Wheatley Peters: Biography of a Genius in Bondage. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2023.
Robbins, Sarah Ruffing. "Phillis Wheatley’s Arrival."
Special Issue of Early American Literature 57.3 (2022).
For a more detailed set of readings, see our Resources section.
Though we cannot recover much of Phillis Wheatley’s personal or family history prior to what must have been a terrifying transatlantic journey, we do know reasons why she remarkably became, as a young adolescent, a celebrity author, first in her new “home” city of Boston, and, not long afterwards, internationally. The Wheatleys did provide opportunities for her to develop precocious reading and writing skills. And poems she wrote in honor of various local luminaries garnered so much praise and appreciation that the Wheatleys sought publication for a collection of her writings. Unable to find adequate sponsorship in the US, they turned to the Countess of Huntington in England, where, after a transatlantic crossing surely far different from her earlier experience of the monstrous Middle Passage on a slave ship, the youthful writer saw her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral published in London in 1773.
Throughout the anniversary year of the Poems’ initial publication, and beyond, our project--The Genius of Phillis Wheatley Peters--has honored that occasion. Our project marks 1773 as not only a milestone in literary and historical terms, but also the starting point generating virtually countless cultural legacies. Celebrating Wheatley Peters (including her later life as a wife and mother, as well as her first publication), the programming this project initially presented and continues to commemorate on this website invites critical examination of themes and social issues associated with her remarkable life.
Brief bibliography:
Carretta, Vincent. Phillis Wheatley Peters: Biography of a Genius in Bondage. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2023.
Robbins, Sarah Ruffing. "Phillis Wheatley’s Arrival."
Special Issue of Early American Literature 57.3 (2022).
For a more detailed set of readings, see our Resources section.