Transcript Phillis Wheatley - Butler County High School

Phillis Wheatley
1753-1784
Known as the 1st African American
poet.
Was stolen from her home in West
Africa when she was 7 or 8 years old.
Arrived in America onboard a
slaveship in 1761. She spoke no
English.
She was purchased by the Wheatley
family of Boston to assist Mrs.
Susanna Wheatley.
She was treated kindly by the
Wheatleys.
Because she was so bright, the
Wheatleys provided her with an
excellent education.
Had her 1st poems published when
she was barely 13.
Susanna Wheatley arranged for a
volume of Phillis’s poems to be
published in London in 1773. The
book was called Poems on Various
Subjects: Religious and Moral.
Around this time, the Wheatleys gave
Phillis her freedom, but she chose to stay
with them.
After they died, she married John Peters, a
freeman, in 1778.
They had three children, but none survived.
John had trouble finding work and was
eventually put in prison over a debt.
Phillis got sick herself and died in her
early thirties—poor, alone and without
publishing another book of poems.