February 13, 2012

digital-images: Black History Month Phillis Wheatley - “On Being Brought from Africa to America” Some view our sable race with scornful eye, “Their colour is a diabolic die.” Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train. A black girl born in West Africa in the 1750s was brought to Massachusetts in 1761 on a ship called The Phillis, sold into slavery to the Wheatley family. The family was far more interested in educating “Phillis Wheatley,” as they named her, than putting her to work. Phillis was deeply involved in Bible study, literature, Greek, and Latin. Her poetry garnered enough attention to gain an audience with the Lord Mayor of London during her time in England in the early 1770s, the same time she was emancipated from slavery, but not yet legally a free woman. In 1776, her poem about George Washington got her invited to his home. In 1778, Mr. Wheatley died, officially freeing her from slavery. She married a free black John Peters, but he went to a debtors prison, leaving behind his ill wife and their sick infant. Phillis and her baby died on the same day in 1784. She was celebrated in her time, and still has a legacy today, as a pioneer in African-American literature, one of the first published black poets.

digital-images:

Black History Month

Phillis Wheatley - “On Being Brought from Africa to America”

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

A black girl born in West Africa in the 1750s was brought to Massachusetts in 1761 on a ship called The Phillis, sold into slavery to the Wheatley family. The family was far more interested in educating “Phillis Wheatley,” as they named her, than putting her to work. Phillis was deeply involved in Bible study, literature, Greek, and Latin.

Her poetry garnered enough attention to gain an audience with the Lord Mayor of London during her time in England in the early 1770s, the same time she was emancipated from slavery, but not yet legally a free woman. In 1776, her poem about George Washington got her invited to his home.

In 1778, Mr. Wheatley died, officially freeing her from slavery. She married a free black John Peters, but he went to a debtors prison, leaving behind his ill wife and their sick infant. Phillis and her baby died on the same day in 1784.

She was celebrated in her time, and still has a legacy today, as a pioneer in African-American literature, one of the first published black poets.

(Source: stfuracists)

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