Phillis Wheatley and "On Being Brought from Africa"
This paper examines the life and work of Phillis Wheatley, the first significant Black American writer and poet, who was brought to Boston as an enslaved child and went on to publish a landmark collection of poems in 1773. The paper traces her biography — from her purchase by the Wheatley family, her education and early writing career, her emancipation, and her difficult later years — before turning to a close reading of her poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America." It analyzes the poem's religious themes, its dual commentary on slavery and Christian hypocrisy, and the critical debates surrounding Wheatley's racial identity and literary legacy.
- Introduction to Phillis Wheatley: Brief introduction to Wheatley as a poet
- Biography and Literary Career: Wheatley's life from slavery to publication
- Critical Reception of Wheatley's Work: Critics debate authenticity and racial identity
- Overview of 'On Being Brought from Africa to America': Context and summary of the famous poem
- Close Reading of the Poem: Stanza-by-stanza analysis of religion and race
- Legacy and Lasting Controversy: Wheatley's enduring significance in American literature
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What makes this paper effective
- Balances biographical context with close textual analysis, giving readers the background needed to appreciate the poem's layered meanings.
- Uses well-chosen primary and secondary quotations — from contemporaries like Thomas Wooldridge to modern critics like Marsha Watson — to support interpretive claims.
- Highlights the tension between Wheatley's personal contentment and the systemic injustice surrounding her, adding nuance to the reading of her poem.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates contextual literary analysis: it situates the poem within Wheatley's lived experience and the broader social conditions of 18th-century colonial Boston, then performs a stanza-by-stanza reading informed by multiple critical perspectives. This technique shows how a poem's meaning cannot be separated from the circumstances of its author.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a biographical account of Wheatley's life, drawing on primary sources and contemporary witness accounts. It then surveys critical responses to her work before turning to the poem itself. The poem analysis proceeds in two movements — first the religious themes of the opening quatrain, then the racial challenge of the closing stanza — before a brief concluding assessment of her literary legacy.
Introduction to Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley stands as one of the most historically significant figures in American literary history. Brought to America as an enslaved child, she overcame extraordinary obstacles to become the first Black American to publish a book of poetry. Her work, rooted in religious faith and shaped by the contradictions of colonial Boston, continues to generate critical debate and scholarly interest centuries after her death.
Biography and Literary Career
Phillis Wheatley came to America as a slave when she was a young girl; she was probably about eight years old when Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley purchased her. She lived in Boston with the family, serving as a companion and helper to Mrs. Wheatley. They encouraged her education: "Indeed, she gained as good an education as (and probably a better one than) most Boston women had, and her learning and abilities gradually gained the interest of a wider and wider segment of the community, especially after she began writing poetry at about the age of twelve, after having been in Boston only about four years" (Mason 3–4).
Thomas Wooldridge wrote of her, "While in Boston, I heard of a very Extraordinary female Slave, who had made verses on our mutually dear deceased Friend [Whitefield]: I visited her mistress, and found by conversing with the African, that she was no Impostor" (Isani 152). Her first book of poems was published in England under the title Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.
Interestingly, many people doubted that a slave could have authored the work. The introduction to the published volume included the signatures of sixteen prominent Bostonians confirming that Wheatley had indeed written the poems: "WE whose Names are under-written, do assure the World, that the POEMS specified in the following Page were (as we verily believe) [written by the author], 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" (Wheatley).
Shortly before her mistress died, the Wheatleys granted her freedom, though she remained in the Wheatley household in Boston and continued to write. She described this period in her own words: "My old master's generous behaviour in granting me my freedom, and still so kind to me I delight to acknowledge my great obligations to him. This he did about 3 months before the death of my dear mistress and at her desire, as well as his own humanity" (Silverman 268).
She married John Peters on April 1, 1778, and had three children with him. The marriage was not a happy one, and they faced severe financial hardship. During this period she published only one or two poems, and it appeared she had largely stopped writing. One of the last poems she wrote appeared shortly before her death, and its subject was death itself. She had always suffered from poor health and asthma, and she died at only 31 years of age.
"The reports of her circumstances in the period before her death on Sunday, December 5, 1784, seem to agree that her life was then at least one of hardships — personal, financial, and familial. Her children did not survive her; the last surviving one was buried with her" (Mason 10).
Critical Reception of Wheatley's Work
There were many critics of Wheatley's work. Many argued that she used her skin color and personal situation to garner sympathy from readers. "Francis Smith Foster maintains that Wheatley 'encouraged' in her audience 'racial awareness by repeatedly referring to her African heritage in her poems, calling attention to her "sable race" and identifying herself as "Afric's muse."' And Anita Silvers points out that Wheatley herself began the tradition of presenting her poetry as 'remarkable for the reason of the history of its author' by actively marketing the volume as [written by a] female slave" (Watson 108).
Wheatley was not the first Black writer to publish work, and many critics acknowledge that she was not a great poet in the technical sense — but she was historically significant for her contribution to American literature. "Certainly she was the first truly significant black American writer, and her 1773 book of poems was probably the first book — and certainly the first book of poetry — published by a black American" (Mason 13).
Overview of 'On Being Brought from Africa to America'
The poem On Being Brought from Africa to America is one of the few Wheatley wrote directly about slavery. Her experience in the Wheatley household was exceptional: they treated her almost as one of the family, and so her perspective on slavery differed greatly from that of most African Americans of the time. Most of her work centered on religion and her deeply held beliefs, which was entirely characteristic of an eighteenth-century writer.
This poem is probably one of the most famous of Wheatley's works, and it is frequently reproduced in print and online. Its eight simple lines are brief, but they convey a great deal in very few words.
Marsha Watson wrote of the poem: "Read literally, the first quatrain has struck many critics as a shocking example of Wheatley's willingness to 'sell her blackness for a pottage of white acceptability.' But read metaphorically, as multilayered discourse, On Being Brought chronicles Wheatley's metaphysical, poetic journey from the hopeless and powerless mortality of an ancient pagan mythos, to the Christian promise of ultimate spiritual liberty and redemption" (Watson 123).
Works Cited
Isani, Mukhtar Ali. "Early Versions of Some Works of Phillis Wheatley." Early American Literature XIV.2 (1979): 149–155.
Lipking, Lawrence. "Phillis Wheatley: On Being Brought from Africa to America." Norton Topics Online. W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.
Mason, Julian D., ed. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Revised ed. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
Scheick, William J. "Subjection and Prophecy in Phillis Wheatley's Verse Paraphrases of Scripture." College Literature, Vol. 22, 10–01–1995, pp. 122–130.
Silverman, Kenneth. "Our New Letters by Phillis Wheatley." Early American Literature VIII.3 (1974): 257–271.
Trescott, Jacqueline. "Henry Louis Gates, A Wheatley Reader; Scholar Cites Lesson of Slavery-Era Poet." The Washington Post. 26 March 2002, p. C08.
Watson, Marsha. "A Classic Case: Phillis Wheatley and Her Poetry." Early American Literature 31.2 (1996): 103–132.
Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral: A Machine-readable Transcription. New York: The New York Public Library, 1997.
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