The Villager Voice
We have called on the poetry of Phyllis Wheatley for our Sunday service on more than one occasion. Phyllis was born in West Africa around 1753, sold into slavery at a young age, and brought to Boston, where she was purchased by the Wheatley family. Though enslaved, she was provided with an education by the Wheatleys; among the subjects she studied were the Bible and the classical languages. She began writing poetry at the age of 14, and earned the notice of her owners and neighbors. On the publication of her first book of poetry, in London in 1773, the Wheatley family released her from slavery.
Phyllis’ faith was an important component of her life, and therefore of her poetry as well. She joined Boston’s Old South Church (now a member church of the United Church of Christ) and was baptized in 1771 at the age of eighteen. As Old South’s historian remarked, “Much of Whatley’s poetry is steeped in spiritual contemplation, biblical allegory and religiously infused lamentations of death.” She used her growing recognition and influence, in part, to challenge church leaders (principally Congregationalists at the time) by demonstrating the ways in which the Bible and Christianity held no place for the practice of slavery.
All of this came to mind this week as Debbie and I visited Boston’s Granary Burial Ground last Monday. There Wheatley is interred among such leading lights of the Revolution as Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Crispus Attucks, Peter Faneuil and the family of Benjamin Franklin. As the first African American poet to have her works published, she deserves her spot in the resting place of so many other American heroes.
Links to Sunday’s bulletin and service are here: