Phillies wheatley biography deathiversary

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Who Was Phillis Wheatley?

Poet Phillis Wheatley was brought to Boston, Massachusetts, on an enslaved person ship in and was purchased by John Wheatley as a personal servant to his wife.

The Wheatleys educated Phillis and she soon mastered Latin and Greek, going on to write highly acclaimed poetry. She published her first poem in and her first volume of verse, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in Having been freed from slavery, she later married and struggled financially, with Wheatley unable to find a publisher for her second volume of poems.

Early Years

A pioneering African American poet, Wheatley was born in Senegal/Gambia around At the age of eight, she was kidnapped and brought to Boston on an enslaved person ship. Upon her arrival, John Wheatley purchased the young girl, who was in fragile health, as a servant for his wife, Susanna.

Under the family's direction, Wheatley (who, as was the custom at the time, adopted her master's las