May 2, 2024 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Phillis Wheatley, the first published black poet, has the remarkable distinction of being invited to meet with King George III and George Washington. Leslie Johnson of the American Village tells her story.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Leid Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
your podcasts. The definition of an anagram is a word
or phrase or written work that can be formed by
(00:30):
rearranging the letters of another and one good example is
on being Brought from Africa to America, written in seventeen
sixty eight. Here to read this poem and tell the
story of the remarkable woman behind the hand that wrote it,
Phyllis Wheatley is Leslie Johnson. Take it away, Leslie.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Twas mercy brought me from my pay in land, taught
my benighted soul to understand that there's a God, that
there is a savior too. Once I redemed neither salt
nor news. Some view our sable race with scornful eye.
Their color is a diabolic dye. Remember Christians, Negroes lacks
cane may be refined and joined the angelic train. There
(01:17):
was another gentleman, a scholar, who actually he was a
fan of anagrams, and he went back and re evaluated
that poem and got a completely different message from the
one that seemingly is presented to you upon first reading it,
because sometimes depending on who the person is that reads it,
you may get different messages. Same can be said of
you and.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Me, hel Brethren in Christ, Have you forgotten God's word?
Scriptures teach us that bondage is wrong. His own greedy
kins sold Joseph into slavery? Is there no balm in Gilead?
God made us all? Aren't African men born to be free?
So am i ye commits so brute a crime on us?
(01:57):
But we can change thy aptitude? America manumental race. I
think the Lord.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And a lot of her poetry, there are lots of
different secret, hidden messages. I mean, she wasn't a fool,
no matter what other people thought. She was not stupid.
She knew where she was, she knew what she was writing.
So what was Philis Wheatley's life?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Like?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Her actual birthday is not known because in Africa, as
I understand that they calculate birth and date a little
bit differently in their cultural traditions. So we don't know that.
We know that she has a family. Of course, she
had a mother and father. At some specific point she
might have even had siblings, but it is unknown. All
(02:48):
we know for sure is that somewhere around the year
of seventeen sixty one she was kidnapped and traveled the
distance of maybe five months. The conditions of any slave
being brought aboard they usually were going to be at
the bottom of the ship, and they were usually packed
together in chains. They were given very little to eat,
very little clothing, usually kept in the dark, usually never
(03:10):
let up. Typically so actually, the schooner that brought her
probably would have had hundreds of slaves, and they're probably
at least a third of that cargo would have died.
Or I say cargo, I mean people, but people were
treated as such, nothing more than cargo. When she arrived
in Boston, she was very sick. Actually, the ship captain
(03:34):
at the time I thought she was going to die,
and so he stopped off. They were actually abound for
the West Indies. The schooner that she was board was
supposed to go to the West Indies, but he had
lost the stock of his his slaves and decided, I'm
going to go off to Boston. This will be close
and it's on the way, and I'll sell what I
can and so you know, the slaves were made to
(03:55):
eat aboard these scaffolds where people could come and inspect them,
pinch them, push them a little bit, make them walk
around to see if they would be able to perform
everyday tasks or activities depending on the labor. As most
of us know, in Boston, Massachusetts is a great big seaport,
it's not a plantation, so what people would want slaves
for would be a little bit different than say the
(04:16):
colonies of Georgia or Virginia, but still hard labors, hard labor.
The captain didn't really probably think anyone was going to
be interested in Phyllis at the time, because she was
really small and frail and dirty and on the brink
of death. In fact, actually she might've most likely suffered
breathing afflictions for the rest of her life due to
the conditions of the ship that were forced on her.
(04:37):
I imagine maybe something close to asthma. But anyway, while
she was up there, of course, you know, she's only
about seven or eight years old by this particular point.
Her age was calculated based on how many teeth that
she had at the time, they weren't actually really sure
of her age. Yeah, so she was just standing up there,
you know, scared little kid. You know, you've just been
taken away from your home. You don't know where you are.
(04:59):
And then this well looking lady and gentlemen just come
up to to where she is and looked down at
her and kind of decide, Okay, we're gonna I'm gonna
take this one home. And that was the the couple,
John and Susanna Wheatley. John Wheatley, Susannah's husband, was a
very uh wealthy tailor and a merchant of sorts, so
(05:22):
he was actually fairly prominent figure, a pretty wealthy gentleman.
There's not a documentation that they had other slaves beyond Phyllis.
It's possible that they did, but there's not as much
documentation on that. But John wanted to get his wife
a slave, just to have mostly as a companion. So
they wanted this kid and paid very little for her.
I don't imagine a few a few pounds, not very much,
(05:46):
and they took her home and they named her Phyllis.
Uh Phyllis was the name actually of the schooner that
brought her to Boston, So that's what she gets her name,
what her name was before we will never know. So
they brought her home and most of her tasks were
delineated to household chores, sweeping the floor, dusting things off, books,
helping missus Wheatley with whatever was necessary. The Wheatley's had
(06:08):
five children. Three of them died. The ones that survived
were one son and one daughter. They were twins. Mary
was the daughter and Nathaniel was the son. And one
day they just happened to or as we it's not
really entirely recorded, but one day I think they happened
to just find that she had an aptitude phyllis for learning.
(06:34):
They just caught her, you know, sometimes looking at books
trying to understand things. Narrative that close by is that
she One day they walked in on her and she
was trying to copy some some uh. She had a
piece of coal in her hand, and there was a
book and she was trying to copy the letters and
trying to make it look the same way. And they
found that fascinating, and so the daughter, specifically Mary, was like, well,
(06:55):
we should see if we can teach her how to
read and write that, you know that that could be something.
John was also on board for that. So she began
learning how to it only took about about sixteen months time.
She could read and write and speak English quite well,
very adept at it, and began learning of the subjects astronomy, literature, geography,
(07:15):
even Greek and Latin, which was actually very uncommon for
a young lady to learn, so for a young African
American female slave, that was pretty much unheard of or
probably considered impossible.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
When we come back more of this story of race
on our American story, Folks, if you love the stories
we tell about this great country, and especially the stories
of America's rich past, know that all of our stories
about American history, from war to innovation, culture and faith
are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College,
a place where students study all the things that are
(07:48):
beautiful in life and all the things that are good
in life. And if you can't cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale
will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more. And we
(08:10):
continue with our American stories and our story on Phyllis
Wheatley with Leslie Johnson at the American Village in Montevallo, Alabama,
when we last left off. Leslie was telling us about
how Phyllis came to America as a young, sickly slave
and ended up in Boston, where she quickly surprised her
owners with her ability to pick up literature and the
(08:33):
English language. So surprising was it that they encouraged her
in her pursuits, something virtually unheard of during that time.
Let's pick up where we last left off. Here again,
is Leslie.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Around fourteen years old, or about fourteen is when she
published her first poem, which was anonymously put into a
roade on paper. Nobody ever figured her at that particular
point in time. She learned how to read Greek and Latin.
I think she could speak some too, probably more than
I would give a credit avit. She probably could speak
pretty well based on if you could pick up like
English in under fourteen months. And I don't know who
(09:15):
knows how much she could do. But she also really
liked the works of Roman poets Ovid and Virgil. One
of them is called Niobe in Distress for her children
slain by Apollo. It's a very long poem. It's good,
but anyway, that wasn't her original poem. But when she
was twelve, she translated it from Greek to Latin and
(09:36):
then to English, just to throw that out there. So
the years continued to roll by, and we find ourselves.
As I said, Phyllis arrived in the country in seventeen
sixty one, so she arrived just before the series of
taxes began to come from England. So she was there
(10:00):
when the Stamp Act came around seventeen sixty five, and columnists,
everyone's upset about all of these varying taxes that are
going on. What's changing about this country? And of course,
going down the road, the shot her around the world
and eventually the Boston massacre, well Boston massacre occurs. She
is completely distraught by this. She even wrote a short
(10:22):
poem about the five individuals that died, which again she
published anonymously. No one knew about it, and she began
to think about I think her place in the world,
what is that supposed to be? And being encouraged to
write by her masters. She continued to watching all these
fantastic changes occur, and she began learning the Bible, reading
(10:43):
to learning to read the Bible at a very young age, too,
really absorbing the things that she read, even as young
as twelve years old. The Wheatleys were very specific about that.
They even actually I believe that the Wheatleys were Methodist,
and whenever they attended church, they took her with them
and she sat with them. That sometimes allowed people to
look at her and look at the weet at least a
little bit differently in certain respects. But that did happen too.
(11:05):
I bring that up because you know, the prominence figure
of the time was a Reverend George Whitfield, a very
great English evangelical preacher. He was quite prominent in the day.
Everyone was listening to his speeches, and he was a
favorite actually of Missus Wheatley, and he was engaged in
a speaking tour that was going on across America. But
he died quite suddenly. When he did, Missus Wheatley was
(11:27):
quite distraught and phyllis. While it's not recorded that she
was able to attend one of his revival meetings, she
was privy to his speeches which were recorded, and she
resonated with a lot of things that he said. When
he died, she decided to write a poem about him,
a wonderful poem. Actually. It was actually published as a
broadside in varying places, which included Boston, Newport, New York,
(11:51):
and Philadelphia as such. Also at the time, she sent
a poem to a countess living in Huntington in England
by the name of Selena. Hastings said the poem and
her condolences as it were, because Miss Hastings was intending
to make Reverend Whitfield a chaplain in one of her
many churches. He prayed that grace in every heart might dwell.
(12:18):
He longed to see America excel. He charged its youth
that every grace divine should, with full luster in their conduct,
shine that Savior, which his soul did. First receive the
greatest gift that even a God can give. He freely
offered to the numerous throng that on his lips, with
listening pleasure hung Take him, ye wretched, for your only good.
(12:42):
Take him, ye starving sinners, for your food, Ye thirsty,
come to this life giving stream, ye preachers. Take him
for your joyful theme. Take him, my dear Americans, he said,
be your complaints on his kind bosom laid. Take him,
ye Africans, he longed for you. Impartial Savior is his
(13:02):
title due washed in the Fountain of redeeming blood. You
shall be sons and kings and priests to God, Great Countess.
We Americans revere thy name and mingle in thy grief
sincere the poem gets there, her poem gets published in London.
(13:26):
It happened. Missus Wheatley found out. She was ecstatic. Oh
my goodness, this is amazing. You need to have more.
I know you've written more. And by this particular point too,
Phyllis had actually always the the Wheatleys. Like many people
of prominent stature, would tend to bring other people to
their home and host for different occasions. Phyllis was also
(13:47):
seen kind of as part of that, As a entertainment,
as it were, she would read and write for varying guests,
and so she decided that more of her works needed
to be published, and so decided to try to get
a number of subscribers within the city in order to
push her book. Phyllis had already written hundreds of poems
(14:09):
by this particular point, so putting together a book would
not have been hard for her. But it is extremely
difficult in this particular time for anyone, even a gentleman,
a gentleman of the time and still have a hard
time getting any work of his published, let alone an
African female slave, though she was unsuccessful the first time
(14:31):
for a couple of reasons. It's just before we were
about to declare or war with Great Britain, so the
colonies are beginning to divide themselves into two distinct factions.
You are either a patriot, a supporter of a cause
of the independence and the separation of the colonies from
Great Britain, or you are a British loyal supporter, a Tory.
(14:55):
The Wheatleys were Tories, something that was not uncommon. Actually
at this particular time, there were a lot of them.
So a loyalist paper is there are many unpopular loyalist papers,
is what Susanna Wheatley was leaning towards when she tried
to get these subscribers. So a lot of people didn't
want to have anything to do with that. The other reason,
in the one that probably makes the most sense because
(15:15):
it is true, is because no one would actually believe
that a slave was capable of writing a volume of poetry.
Husband though John Wheatley said, well, we're going to have
a meeting. I'm going to gather together eighteen of the
most prominent men in Boston, several which who were ministers.
That included Reverend Samuel Cooper or James Bowdwin, the governor
(15:37):
of Massachusetts at the time, many very large families who
came to this meeting. The purpose of the meeting was
to determine whether or not she had written this poetry.
Just imagine that you know, you're eighteen years old, You've
written all this poetry, you had a poem published in
London because someone decided that's something. And now the eighteen
(16:03):
figures that you probably are fairly familiar with, at least
half of them Boston. Again, while being a large city,
you know who's in charge of everything here. So and
half of them are ministers. Some of them are poets.
They may not necessarily be published, but several of the
ministers were poets. Half of them are loyalists, the other
half are British patriots. All of them have come together
(16:24):
to find out whether or not you are capable of
writing something, and whether or not this is a lie.
Notwithstanding also, it was illegal at the time or extremely
frowned upon, to be educating slaves in general. So this
is about your entire future being placed on the line.
This is unprecedented no one's ever done this before.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And you've been listening to the story of Phyllis Wheatley
as told by Leslie Johnson at the American Village in Montevallo, Alabama.
And it's the story and part of American history. Again,
America is divided, as we've talked about before, between those
who are in favor of the crown, who were with
the patriots, and those who are hiding under a rock
(17:03):
or under a table, hoping for everything to pass. Of
course it didn't. Then she had to face this question
of whether a young black woman could write the poetry
that she claimed to write. By the way, this would
be a claim that Auguste. Wilson would have to make
the prominent African American playwright in this country, who wrote
the play Fences and so many others. He was questioned
(17:25):
about his writing capabilities in the Pittsburgh public schools and
he left school. They didn't believe he could have written
so well. Phillis Whitley's story continues here on now American story.
(18:08):
And we returned to our American stories and our final
portion on the story of Phyllis Wheatley with Leslie Johnson
at the American village in Montevallo, Alabama. When we last
left off, Phyllis Wheatley was set to publish her first
book of poetry, but had to be put in front
of a panel of Bostonian elites who were determined whether
or not she actually penned her own work. Let's return
(18:32):
to the story here again is Leslie Johnson.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
There had been other African American poets before Phyllis Wheatley,
but none of them had any published work, and none
of them were sought after, usually to determine whether or
not they had the intelligence and the aptitude for any
kind of writing. So I imagine she thought that her
future was being placed in the hands of these gentlemen
in their decision. You know, if they decided that that
was wrong, that she didn't, then she could still be
(19:01):
left in the confines of the situation she presently was in,
even if it was a little bit better than most
slaves at this time. But if they decided that she had,
that could open up doors that didn't exist before, and
not just for her, but for perhaps maybe other people after,
other African Americans. We'll never know what actually happened. No
(19:22):
one documented what happened on this historic attestation, this whole
meeting that happened. But when it was all over, she
was given a public attestation which said, we whose names
are underwritten, do assure the world that the poems specified
in the following page were, as we verily believe, written
(19:43):
by Phyllis, a young Negro girl who was but a
few years since brought an uncultivated barbarian from Africa, and
has ever since been and now is under the disadvantage
of serving as a slave in a family in this town.
She has been examined by some of the best judges
and is thought qualified to write them. That document was
(20:04):
signed by every gentleman who was present at that meeting.
The book was called Poems on Various Subjects, religious and Moral,
and it was again this great, this great triumph. No
one had ever done this before. It's the first African
American poet to ever have a published work ever. The
publisher actually of book actually went on to say that
(20:26):
her work consisted of one of the greatest instances of
pure unassisted genius the world ever seen. And he pointed
out that she was in fact a native of Africa
and had not left it till she was nearly eight
years old with zero training in English, did not know English,
couldn't speak English, couldn't read or write to this, and
this is before or close to the age of twenty.
(20:47):
So as a result, she was given leave by her
mistress Susannah to go to England so that she could
oversee the book's publication. She was also helped by that
same Countess Selena Hastings I talked to a little bit earlier,
because she's one of the people who helped facilitate this.
She's very well received by the English in England by
this particular point, even though it had not been the
(21:09):
sticking point yet. Because the war for Independence is about
to happen. English people, they didn't care very much for slavery.
There were many more abolitionists at that particular point who
were already looking towards that. So when she arrived, not
only were they just impressed with her intelligence and her demure,
her entire countenance, she was also considered as a child,
(21:30):
a very genial, precocious child, and they even at the
time while she was there, criticized the Wheatleys for that
she was still slave after this accomplishment. But while she
was there she met a lot of prominent gentry, the
Earl of Dartmouth at the time, and Brooke Watson, another
supporter of hers who would later become the Mayor of London.
Benjamin Franklin actually had been in London on that time
(21:51):
and he actually called upon her. He heard about Phillis
Wheatley and was like, let me go, you know. He
came and he ended up writing a letter to another
friend of his like, did I visited the young mistress
of Phyllis Wheatley and tried to, you know, find out
what I could do for her. I don't believe I
could do anything, but maybe you can. But he found
her to be, you know, quite intelligent and enjoyed her
company for the brief amount of time. She was even
(22:14):
invited to meet King George the Third and the royal
family also, something that was very unusual and people don't
just meet the king. Unfortunately, she was not able to
meet King George or the royal family because by this
particular point, Susanna Wheatley had fallen ill. Of what the
illness was is not recorded, so they had to make
(22:37):
the journey back home. As we all know, really any
boat trip that anyone takes is going to take a
bit of time, and I imagine from Boston to England
that was at least three or four months of your
time on ships. So she goes back home before Christmas.
Susanna Wheatley's health is not improved by this point. At
some point she is summoned by both John and Susannah
(22:59):
Wheatley and they call her over and meet her in
the parlor, sit her down between them, and it was
their desire to free her, which they did. They did
shortly after she returned home from England. Whether or not
they freed her because of the publication of the book,
the criticism they may have received from the English, or
because they wanted to, we don't really know. I like
(23:20):
to think that it's because they wanted her to have
a better life of her own, but I also understand
the conventions of the time, and that may not necessarily
be true. And if we are thinking about social standing
and status, you might be more concerned with your reputation
than such things. Again, she was created very well by
all accounts, and according to what I've also read, though
(23:41):
they were very fond of her. I think that missus
Wheatley even considered her closer to a child that she
helped raise as much as a slave, so they were
able to free her. That was around yeah, the fall
of seventeen seventy three and the spring of seventeen seventy four,
two things happened. Susanna Wheeley died and the British landed
(24:04):
in Boston. Also around this time, she also had found
out that George Washington had been make commander in chief
of a continental army at this point, and she was
a very big George Washington fan. I guess she's not alone.
There's a lot of people who are George Washington fans
out there. So she wrote a poem about him actually,
and carried correspondence with George Washington a few times before
(24:26):
eventually getting correspondence back. He was actually apologetic that he
was not able to speak with her. Sooner shall I
to Washington their praise recite enough? Thou knowest in the
fields of fight, the first in peace and honors. We
demand the grace and glory of thy martial band, famed
(24:49):
for thy valor, for thy virtues. More hear every tongue
thy guardian aide implore. One century, Scarce performed its destined
round when Gaelic powers Columbia's fury found. And so may
you whoever dares disgrace the land of Freedom's heaven defended
race fixed are the eyes of nations on the scales,
(25:10):
for then their hopes Columbia's arm prevails. A non Britannia
droops the pensive head, while round increase the rising hills
of dead Ah cruel blindness to Columbia State laments thy
thirst of boundless power. Too late, Proceed great chief, with
virtue on thy side. Thy every action. Let the Goddess
(25:31):
guide a crown, a mansion, a throne that shine with gold, unfading.
Washington be thine. But anyway, after the British came in
seventeen seventy four, John Wheatley fled again. He was a loyalist,
so by this point the Wheakly children are out of
the house. Mary Wheatley is married to someone else, so
(25:55):
Phyllis was sent to live with her for a period
of time. She left Boston because of this. She doesn't
return for three or four years. By the time she
comes back about seventeen seventy six or so, the world
had sort of moved on without her. While she did,
of course receive a specific amount of compensation for her
first volume of poetry. She didn't get all of it,
(26:16):
and she had one more submission into the Boston Evening Post,
and not too long after that, December fifth, seventeen eighty four,
she died. There is no recorded cause of her death,
I imagine, just due to dwindling funds, being poor, living
in filth, which is a truly unhappy ending to what
(26:37):
was a very amazing person who, in my opinion, was
probably born way too early to be truly appreciated for
the kind of stir that she made. Someone has to
be first. It happened to be her, I think. Actually
Henry Louis Yates Junior spoke very He said it very eloquently.
She was too black for her white contemporaries and not
(27:02):
black enough for her future contemporaries, so stuck in a
rock in a hard place. But I think about a teenager,
a teenager who did something no one else.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Ever did, the story of the first published African American poet.
Here on our American Stories
This is Leid Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
your podcasts. The definition of an anagram is a word
or phrase or written work that can be formed by
(00:30):
rearranging the letters of another and one good example is
on being Brought from Africa to America, written in seventeen
sixty eight. Here to read this poem and tell the
story of the remarkable woman behind the hand that wrote it,
Phyllis Wheatley is Leslie Johnson. Take it away, Leslie.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Twas mercy brought me from my pay in land, taught
my benighted soul to understand that there's a God, that
there is a savior too. Once I redemed neither salt
nor news. Some view our sable race with scornful eye.
Their color is a diabolic dye. Remember Christians, Negroes lacks
cane may be refined and joined the angelic train. There
(01:17):
was another gentleman, a scholar, who actually he was a
fan of anagrams, and he went back and re evaluated
that poem and got a completely different message from the
one that seemingly is presented to you upon first reading it,
because sometimes depending on who the person is that reads it,
you may get different messages. Same can be said of
you and.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Me, hel Brethren in Christ, Have you forgotten God's word?
Scriptures teach us that bondage is wrong. His own greedy
kins sold Joseph into slavery? Is there no balm in Gilead?
God made us all? Aren't African men born to be free?
So am i ye commits so brute a crime on us?
(01:57):
But we can change thy aptitude? America manumental race. I
think the Lord.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And a lot of her poetry, there are lots of
different secret, hidden messages. I mean, she wasn't a fool,
no matter what other people thought. She was not stupid.
She knew where she was, she knew what she was writing.
So what was Philis Wheatley's life?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Like?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Her actual birthday is not known because in Africa, as
I understand that they calculate birth and date a little
bit differently in their cultural traditions. So we don't know that.
We know that she has a family. Of course, she
had a mother and father. At some specific point she
might have even had siblings, but it is unknown. All
(02:48):
we know for sure is that somewhere around the year
of seventeen sixty one she was kidnapped and traveled the
distance of maybe five months. The conditions of any slave
being brought aboard they usually were going to be at
the bottom of the ship, and they were usually packed
together in chains. They were given very little to eat,
very little clothing, usually kept in the dark, usually never
(03:10):
let up. Typically so actually, the schooner that brought her
probably would have had hundreds of slaves, and they're probably
at least a third of that cargo would have died.
Or I say cargo, I mean people, but people were
treated as such, nothing more than cargo. When she arrived
in Boston, she was very sick. Actually, the ship captain
(03:34):
at the time I thought she was going to die,
and so he stopped off. They were actually abound for
the West Indies. The schooner that she was board was
supposed to go to the West Indies, but he had
lost the stock of his his slaves and decided, I'm
going to go off to Boston. This will be close
and it's on the way, and I'll sell what I
can and so you know, the slaves were made to
(03:55):
eat aboard these scaffolds where people could come and inspect them,
pinch them, push them a little bit, make them walk
around to see if they would be able to perform
everyday tasks or activities depending on the labor. As most
of us know, in Boston, Massachusetts is a great big seaport,
it's not a plantation, so what people would want slaves
for would be a little bit different than say the
(04:16):
colonies of Georgia or Virginia, but still hard labors, hard labor.
The captain didn't really probably think anyone was going to
be interested in Phyllis at the time, because she was
really small and frail and dirty and on the brink
of death. In fact, actually she might've most likely suffered
breathing afflictions for the rest of her life due to
the conditions of the ship that were forced on her.
(04:37):
I imagine maybe something close to asthma. But anyway, while
she was up there, of course, you know, she's only
about seven or eight years old by this particular point.
Her age was calculated based on how many teeth that
she had at the time, they weren't actually really sure
of her age. Yeah, so she was just standing up there,
you know, scared little kid. You know, you've just been
taken away from your home. You don't know where you are.
(04:59):
And then this well looking lady and gentlemen just come
up to to where she is and looked down at
her and kind of decide, Okay, we're gonna I'm gonna
take this one home. And that was the the couple,
John and Susanna Wheatley. John Wheatley, Susannah's husband, was a
very uh wealthy tailor and a merchant of sorts, so
(05:22):
he was actually fairly prominent figure, a pretty wealthy gentleman.
There's not a documentation that they had other slaves beyond Phyllis.
It's possible that they did, but there's not as much
documentation on that. But John wanted to get his wife
a slave, just to have mostly as a companion. So
they wanted this kid and paid very little for her.
I don't imagine a few a few pounds, not very much,
(05:46):
and they took her home and they named her Phyllis.
Uh Phyllis was the name actually of the schooner that
brought her to Boston, So that's what she gets her name,
what her name was before we will never know. So
they brought her home and most of her tasks were
delineated to household chores, sweeping the floor, dusting things off, books,
helping missus Wheatley with whatever was necessary. The Wheatley's had
(06:08):
five children. Three of them died. The ones that survived
were one son and one daughter. They were twins. Mary
was the daughter and Nathaniel was the son. And one
day they just happened to or as we it's not
really entirely recorded, but one day I think they happened
to just find that she had an aptitude phyllis for learning.
(06:34):
They just caught her, you know, sometimes looking at books
trying to understand things. Narrative that close by is that
she One day they walked in on her and she
was trying to copy some some uh. She had a
piece of coal in her hand, and there was a
book and she was trying to copy the letters and
trying to make it look the same way. And they
found that fascinating, and so the daughter, specifically Mary, was like, well,
(06:55):
we should see if we can teach her how to
read and write that, you know that that could be something.
John was also on board for that. So she began
learning how to it only took about about sixteen months time.
She could read and write and speak English quite well,
very adept at it, and began learning of the subjects astronomy, literature, geography,
(07:15):
even Greek and Latin, which was actually very uncommon for
a young lady to learn, so for a young African
American female slave, that was pretty much unheard of or
probably considered impossible.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
When we come back more of this story of race
on our American story, Folks, if you love the stories
we tell about this great country, and especially the stories
of America's rich past, know that all of our stories
about American history, from war to innovation, culture and faith
are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College,
a place where students study all the things that are
(07:48):
beautiful in life and all the things that are good
in life. And if you can't cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale
will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more. And we
(08:10):
continue with our American stories and our story on Phyllis
Wheatley with Leslie Johnson at the American Village in Montevallo, Alabama,
when we last left off. Leslie was telling us about
how Phyllis came to America as a young, sickly slave
and ended up in Boston, where she quickly surprised her
owners with her ability to pick up literature and the
(08:33):
English language. So surprising was it that they encouraged her
in her pursuits, something virtually unheard of during that time.
Let's pick up where we last left off. Here again,
is Leslie.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Around fourteen years old, or about fourteen is when she
published her first poem, which was anonymously put into a
roade on paper. Nobody ever figured her at that particular
point in time. She learned how to read Greek and Latin.
I think she could speak some too, probably more than
I would give a credit avit. She probably could speak
pretty well based on if you could pick up like
English in under fourteen months. And I don't know who
(09:15):
knows how much she could do. But she also really
liked the works of Roman poets Ovid and Virgil. One
of them is called Niobe in Distress for her children
slain by Apollo. It's a very long poem. It's good,
but anyway, that wasn't her original poem. But when she
was twelve, she translated it from Greek to Latin and
(09:36):
then to English, just to throw that out there. So
the years continued to roll by, and we find ourselves.
As I said, Phyllis arrived in the country in seventeen
sixty one, so she arrived just before the series of
taxes began to come from England. So she was there
(10:00):
when the Stamp Act came around seventeen sixty five, and columnists,
everyone's upset about all of these varying taxes that are
going on. What's changing about this country? And of course,
going down the road, the shot her around the world
and eventually the Boston massacre, well Boston massacre occurs. She
is completely distraught by this. She even wrote a short
(10:22):
poem about the five individuals that died, which again she
published anonymously. No one knew about it, and she began
to think about I think her place in the world,
what is that supposed to be? And being encouraged to
write by her masters. She continued to watching all these
fantastic changes occur, and she began learning the Bible, reading
(10:43):
to learning to read the Bible at a very young age, too,
really absorbing the things that she read, even as young
as twelve years old. The Wheatleys were very specific about that.
They even actually I believe that the Wheatleys were Methodist,
and whenever they attended church, they took her with them
and she sat with them. That sometimes allowed people to
look at her and look at the weet at least a
little bit differently in certain respects. But that did happen too.
(11:05):
I bring that up because you know, the prominence figure
of the time was a Reverend George Whitfield, a very
great English evangelical preacher. He was quite prominent in the day.
Everyone was listening to his speeches, and he was a
favorite actually of Missus Wheatley, and he was engaged in
a speaking tour that was going on across America. But
he died quite suddenly. When he did, Missus Wheatley was
(11:27):
quite distraught and phyllis. While it's not recorded that she
was able to attend one of his revival meetings, she
was privy to his speeches which were recorded, and she
resonated with a lot of things that he said. When
he died, she decided to write a poem about him,
a wonderful poem. Actually. It was actually published as a
broadside in varying places, which included Boston, Newport, New York,
(11:51):
and Philadelphia as such. Also at the time, she sent
a poem to a countess living in Huntington in England
by the name of Selena. Hastings said the poem and
her condolences as it were, because Miss Hastings was intending
to make Reverend Whitfield a chaplain in one of her
many churches. He prayed that grace in every heart might dwell.
(12:18):
He longed to see America excel. He charged its youth
that every grace divine should, with full luster in their conduct,
shine that Savior, which his soul did. First receive the
greatest gift that even a God can give. He freely
offered to the numerous throng that on his lips, with
listening pleasure hung Take him, ye wretched, for your only good.
(12:42):
Take him, ye starving sinners, for your food, Ye thirsty,
come to this life giving stream, ye preachers. Take him
for your joyful theme. Take him, my dear Americans, he said,
be your complaints on his kind bosom laid. Take him,
ye Africans, he longed for you. Impartial Savior is his
(13:02):
title due washed in the Fountain of redeeming blood. You
shall be sons and kings and priests to God, Great Countess.
We Americans revere thy name and mingle in thy grief
sincere the poem gets there, her poem gets published in London.
(13:26):
It happened. Missus Wheatley found out. She was ecstatic. Oh
my goodness, this is amazing. You need to have more.
I know you've written more. And by this particular point too,
Phyllis had actually always the the Wheatleys. Like many people
of prominent stature, would tend to bring other people to
their home and host for different occasions. Phyllis was also
(13:47):
seen kind of as part of that, As a entertainment,
as it were, she would read and write for varying guests,
and so she decided that more of her works needed
to be published, and so decided to try to get
a number of subscribers within the city in order to
push her book. Phyllis had already written hundreds of poems
(14:09):
by this particular point, so putting together a book would
not have been hard for her. But it is extremely
difficult in this particular time for anyone, even a gentleman,
a gentleman of the time and still have a hard
time getting any work of his published, let alone an
African female slave, though she was unsuccessful the first time
(14:31):
for a couple of reasons. It's just before we were
about to declare or war with Great Britain, so the
colonies are beginning to divide themselves into two distinct factions.
You are either a patriot, a supporter of a cause
of the independence and the separation of the colonies from
Great Britain, or you are a British loyal supporter, a Tory.
(14:55):
The Wheatleys were Tories, something that was not uncommon. Actually
at this particular time, there were a lot of them.
So a loyalist paper is there are many unpopular loyalist papers,
is what Susanna Wheatley was leaning towards when she tried
to get these subscribers. So a lot of people didn't
want to have anything to do with that. The other reason,
in the one that probably makes the most sense because
(15:15):
it is true, is because no one would actually believe
that a slave was capable of writing a volume of poetry.
Husband though John Wheatley said, well, we're going to have
a meeting. I'm going to gather together eighteen of the
most prominent men in Boston, several which who were ministers.
That included Reverend Samuel Cooper or James Bowdwin, the governor
(15:37):
of Massachusetts at the time, many very large families who
came to this meeting. The purpose of the meeting was
to determine whether or not she had written this poetry.
Just imagine that you know, you're eighteen years old, You've
written all this poetry, you had a poem published in
London because someone decided that's something. And now the eighteen
(16:03):
figures that you probably are fairly familiar with, at least
half of them Boston. Again, while being a large city,
you know who's in charge of everything here. So and
half of them are ministers. Some of them are poets.
They may not necessarily be published, but several of the
ministers were poets. Half of them are loyalists, the other
half are British patriots. All of them have come together
(16:24):
to find out whether or not you are capable of
writing something, and whether or not this is a lie.
Notwithstanding also, it was illegal at the time or extremely
frowned upon, to be educating slaves in general. So this
is about your entire future being placed on the line.
This is unprecedented no one's ever done this before.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And you've been listening to the story of Phyllis Wheatley
as told by Leslie Johnson at the American Village in Montevallo, Alabama.
And it's the story and part of American history. Again,
America is divided, as we've talked about before, between those
who are in favor of the crown, who were with
the patriots, and those who are hiding under a rock
(17:03):
or under a table, hoping for everything to pass. Of
course it didn't. Then she had to face this question
of whether a young black woman could write the poetry
that she claimed to write. By the way, this would
be a claim that Auguste. Wilson would have to make
the prominent African American playwright in this country, who wrote
the play Fences and so many others. He was questioned
(17:25):
about his writing capabilities in the Pittsburgh public schools and
he left school. They didn't believe he could have written
so well. Phillis Whitley's story continues here on now American story.
(18:08):
And we returned to our American stories and our final
portion on the story of Phyllis Wheatley with Leslie Johnson
at the American village in Montevallo, Alabama. When we last
left off, Phyllis Wheatley was set to publish her first
book of poetry, but had to be put in front
of a panel of Bostonian elites who were determined whether
or not she actually penned her own work. Let's return
(18:32):
to the story here again is Leslie Johnson.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
There had been other African American poets before Phyllis Wheatley,
but none of them had any published work, and none
of them were sought after, usually to determine whether or
not they had the intelligence and the aptitude for any
kind of writing. So I imagine she thought that her
future was being placed in the hands of these gentlemen
in their decision. You know, if they decided that that
was wrong, that she didn't, then she could still be
(19:01):
left in the confines of the situation she presently was in,
even if it was a little bit better than most
slaves at this time. But if they decided that she had,
that could open up doors that didn't exist before, and
not just for her, but for perhaps maybe other people after,
other African Americans. We'll never know what actually happened. No
(19:22):
one documented what happened on this historic attestation, this whole
meeting that happened. But when it was all over, she
was given a public attestation which said, we whose names
are underwritten, do assure the world that the poems specified
in the following page were, as we verily believe, written
(19:43):
by Phyllis, a young Negro girl who was but a
few years since brought an uncultivated barbarian from Africa, and
has ever since been and now is under the disadvantage
of serving as a slave in a family in this town.
She has been examined by some of the best judges
and is thought qualified to write them. That document was
(20:04):
signed by every gentleman who was present at that meeting.
The book was called Poems on Various Subjects, religious and Moral,
and it was again this great, this great triumph. No
one had ever done this before. It's the first African
American poet to ever have a published work ever. The
publisher actually of book actually went on to say that
(20:26):
her work consisted of one of the greatest instances of
pure unassisted genius the world ever seen. And he pointed
out that she was in fact a native of Africa
and had not left it till she was nearly eight
years old with zero training in English, did not know English,
couldn't speak English, couldn't read or write to this, and
this is before or close to the age of twenty.
(20:47):
So as a result, she was given leave by her
mistress Susannah to go to England so that she could
oversee the book's publication. She was also helped by that
same Countess Selena Hastings I talked to a little bit earlier,
because she's one of the people who helped facilitate this.
She's very well received by the English in England by
this particular point, even though it had not been the
(21:09):
sticking point yet. Because the war for Independence is about
to happen. English people, they didn't care very much for slavery.
There were many more abolitionists at that particular point who
were already looking towards that. So when she arrived, not
only were they just impressed with her intelligence and her demure,
her entire countenance, she was also considered as a child,
(21:30):
a very genial, precocious child, and they even at the
time while she was there, criticized the Wheatleys for that
she was still slave after this accomplishment. But while she
was there she met a lot of prominent gentry, the
Earl of Dartmouth at the time, and Brooke Watson, another
supporter of hers who would later become the Mayor of London.
Benjamin Franklin actually had been in London on that time
(21:51):
and he actually called upon her. He heard about Phillis
Wheatley and was like, let me go, you know. He
came and he ended up writing a letter to another
friend of his like, did I visited the young mistress
of Phyllis Wheatley and tried to, you know, find out
what I could do for her. I don't believe I
could do anything, but maybe you can. But he found
her to be, you know, quite intelligent and enjoyed her
company for the brief amount of time. She was even
(22:14):
invited to meet King George the Third and the royal
family also, something that was very unusual and people don't
just meet the king. Unfortunately, she was not able to
meet King George or the royal family because by this
particular point, Susanna Wheatley had fallen ill. Of what the
illness was is not recorded, so they had to make
(22:37):
the journey back home. As we all know, really any
boat trip that anyone takes is going to take a
bit of time, and I imagine from Boston to England
that was at least three or four months of your
time on ships. So she goes back home before Christmas.
Susanna Wheatley's health is not improved by this point. At
some point she is summoned by both John and Susannah
(22:59):
Wheatley and they call her over and meet her in
the parlor, sit her down between them, and it was
their desire to free her, which they did. They did
shortly after she returned home from England. Whether or not
they freed her because of the publication of the book,
the criticism they may have received from the English, or
because they wanted to, we don't really know. I like
(23:20):
to think that it's because they wanted her to have
a better life of her own, but I also understand
the conventions of the time, and that may not necessarily
be true. And if we are thinking about social standing
and status, you might be more concerned with your reputation
than such things. Again, she was created very well by
all accounts, and according to what I've also read, though
(23:41):
they were very fond of her. I think that missus
Wheatley even considered her closer to a child that she
helped raise as much as a slave, so they were
able to free her. That was around yeah, the fall
of seventeen seventy three and the spring of seventeen seventy four,
two things happened. Susanna Wheeley died and the British landed
(24:04):
in Boston. Also around this time, she also had found
out that George Washington had been make commander in chief
of a continental army at this point, and she was
a very big George Washington fan. I guess she's not alone.
There's a lot of people who are George Washington fans
out there. So she wrote a poem about him actually,
and carried correspondence with George Washington a few times before
(24:26):
eventually getting correspondence back. He was actually apologetic that he
was not able to speak with her. Sooner shall I
to Washington their praise recite enough? Thou knowest in the
fields of fight, the first in peace and honors. We
demand the grace and glory of thy martial band, famed
(24:49):
for thy valor, for thy virtues. More hear every tongue
thy guardian aide implore. One century, Scarce performed its destined
round when Gaelic powers Columbia's fury found. And so may
you whoever dares disgrace the land of Freedom's heaven defended
race fixed are the eyes of nations on the scales,
(25:10):
for then their hopes Columbia's arm prevails. A non Britannia
droops the pensive head, while round increase the rising hills
of dead Ah cruel blindness to Columbia State laments thy
thirst of boundless power. Too late, Proceed great chief, with
virtue on thy side. Thy every action. Let the Goddess
(25:31):
guide a crown, a mansion, a throne that shine with gold, unfading.
Washington be thine. But anyway, after the British came in
seventeen seventy four, John Wheatley fled again. He was a loyalist,
so by this point the Wheakly children are out of
the house. Mary Wheatley is married to someone else, so
(25:55):
Phyllis was sent to live with her for a period
of time. She left Boston because of this. She doesn't
return for three or four years. By the time she
comes back about seventeen seventy six or so, the world
had sort of moved on without her. While she did,
of course receive a specific amount of compensation for her
first volume of poetry. She didn't get all of it,
(26:16):
and she had one more submission into the Boston Evening Post,
and not too long after that, December fifth, seventeen eighty four,
she died. There is no recorded cause of her death,
I imagine, just due to dwindling funds, being poor, living
in filth, which is a truly unhappy ending to what
(26:37):
was a very amazing person who, in my opinion, was
probably born way too early to be truly appreciated for
the kind of stir that she made. Someone has to
be first. It happened to be her, I think. Actually
Henry Louis Yates Junior spoke very He said it very eloquently.
She was too black for her white contemporaries and not
(27:02):
black enough for her future contemporaries, so stuck in a
rock in a hard place. But I think about a teenager,
a teenager who did something no one else.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Ever did, the story of the first published African American poet.
Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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