Phillis Wheatley

born c. 1753, died 1784

Little is known of the early life of the exemplary poet Phillis
Wheatley. Bought by Boston tailor John Wheatley in 1761 directly
off a slave ship, her age was placed at seven because she was 
losing her first teeth. Her relatively kind owners allowed her free run
of the house and library, and she very quickly learned English. 
Despite her status as a slave, Wheatley amazingly started to write 
poetry at the age of thriteen. Her highly classical poetry shows the 
influence of Alexander Pope and Thomas Gray. She was praised as a prodigy 
during her life, attracting the attention of prominent people like the 
Countess of Huntington in London, General George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, 
and John Hancock. The praise, however, did not keep her from dying 
penniless or keep her life from becoming all but lost to history. 
It was not until 1834 that Margaretta Odell, by publishing a memoir 
in a new edition of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, 
established Wheatley as the first African-American woman poet.