MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

The Legacy of Phillis Wheatley

Final Thesis

Brno 2020

Supervisor: Mgr. Pavla Buchtová Author: Mgr. Eva Siegelová

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Declaration: I hereby declare that I worked on my final thesis independently, using only the sources listed in the bibliography section. I agree with storing this work in the library of the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University Brno and making it accessible for study purposes.

………………….... Brno, 29 May 2020 Mgr. Eva Siegelová 3

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Pavla Buchtová for her guidance and valuable comments. I would also like to thank my family for their patience, support and encouragement.

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Annotation The focus of the thesis is on Phillis Wheatley, the first African American woman author, who published a book of poetry while in bondage. It describes the important milestones of Phillis Wheatley’s life and deals chronologically with her reception as a poet in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and then in the twentieth and the twenty-first century. The thesis also includes a brief summary of significant events in American history, especially the long African American fight for freedom and equal rights. The aim of the thesis is to raise awareness of the life, work and legacy of Phillis Wheatley, a less known American poet.

Keywords Slavery, poetry, controversy, ambiguity, literacy, criticism, American Revolution, Boston, African Americans, segregation, the fight for equal rights, white mind, black perspective.

Anotace Práce je zaměřena na Phillis Wheatley, první afroamerickou autorku, která vydala svoji básnickou sbírku, když byla držena v otroctví. Práce zmiňuje důležité milníky v životě Phillis Wheatleyové a chronologicky popisuje jak byla přijímána a chápána v osmnáctém, devatenáctém, dvacátém a jednadvacátém století. Práce také obsahuje stručné shrnutí důležitých momentů americké historie. Především pak dlouhý boj afroameričanů za svobodu a rovná práva. Cílem práce je zvýšit povědomí o životě, díle a odkazu této méně známé americké básnířky.

Klíčová slova Otroctví, poezie, kontroverze, dvojznačnost, gramotnost, kritika, Americká revoluce, Boston, Afroameričané, segregace, boj za rovná práva, bílá mysl, černošský úhel pohledu.

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Contents

Introduction ...... 6 1. Life of a slave and a poet ...... 8 2. Years of early controversy and admiration ...... 13 3. An example of an African American achievement ...... 20 4. A new wave of controversy ...... 27 5. The vivid legacy ...... 32 Conclusion ...... 36 Bibliography ...... 38

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Introduction

Phillis Wheatley was for me only a fictional character from Ann Rinaldi’s book Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (1996), which I randomly bought in a Charity shop in London a few years ago. Its book cover caught my attention and its synopsis on the backside of the book disclosed that this historical fiction might be interesting. Only later I found out Phillis Wheatley was a real person, who is well-known in the United States of America and is given as an example of a successful African American to young children. No one knows the exact date of Phillis Wheatley’s birth. When she was brought to the New World, her age was guessed from the number of missing teeth. According to that it was decided she might have been around seven or eight years of age, therefore her birth was estimated around 1753. Other dates mapping her life are known and are mentioned repeatedly by many scholars. In 1761 she was brought from Africa to Boston, Massachusetts. Only nine years later, in 1770, her first poem was published. Her book, Poems of Various Subjects, was published in London in 1773. With the last often repeated date, 1784, her storyline ends. Not much to investigate here, one might object. However, virtually two million references of her name in Google browser suggest that a big investigation has been done already. Therefore the aim of this thesis is not to come up with any groundbreaking new ideas. I have my personal aim. I would like to learn more about Phillis Wheatley, her life and the way she was accepted throughout the years. I am not intended to analyze nor judge her poetry. What I am interested in is the way she was acknowledged by her contemporaries and next generations of her adherents and detractors. In some cases I was curious who her critics were. Therefore I will also include a short commentary about those chosen scholars. In the first chapter I will describe the important milestones of Phillis Wheatley’s life. The other chapters will deal chronologically with her reception as a poet in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and then in the twentieth and the twenty-first century. As many significant events have happened in American history since Phillis Wheatley was discussed in American drawing rooms, I will also include a brief summary of these landmarks. Especially the long African American fight for equal rights is important for understanding why Wheatley was praised or condemned. It is interesting to watch how a singular figure has been defined, redefined, appropriated and rejected in different times and places by both Euro-Americans and African Americans. 7

This thesis is based on a selective examination of various secondary sources, from which I have chosen relevant information. Facts and other information will be presented understandably and could possibly serve to History and Civics teachers as a basic source for teaching CLIL lessons about American history, Civil Rights or racism and xenophobia. Moreover the story of Wheatley’s life could be used in English lessons to foster cultural awareness, where students can discuss the challenges confronting African Americans in the past. While doing my research I was wondering, why Phillis Wheatley became so popular again, when she was at one time even excluded from anthologies of American literature. Nowadays, many schools in the United States bear her name, also literary societies and other institutions devoted to the public support of literacy use her name in their titles. There are many online teacher worksheets for children and students of various age groups, which prove that Phillis Wheatley’s story and her poems are taught, read and examined even in the twenty- first century. What is more, the annual readings of her poetry are held at many universities, also there are sermons in churches dedicated to her legacy. There are even T-shirts and hoodies with her picture and a short biography1, rap songs, short movies for children, fictions for young adults, etc. Her legacy is omnipresent. But why? In my opinion, the stories of controversial celebrities are always intriguing and many people, including myself, simply want to find out what the controversy is about. Moreover, the ambiguity of her verse definitely draws the attention of many of those, who want to reveal their true meaning. That is of course only a shallow point of view. I think the popularity of Phillis Wheatley goes deeper. The issue of race is still present in the American society, although in a different form. Therefore symbols of black achievements are constantly needed. Phillis Wheatley’s legacy of the first African American woman author to receive a recognition in the literary world fulfills this need.

1 www.ethniciteesllc.org/ 8

1. Life of a slave and a poet

The person, who is now known as Phillis Wheatley was presumably born around 1753. As it was mentioned earlier, her age was guessed according to her height and the number of missing front teeth. Similarly, her place of birth is not certain. Gambia or Senegal in West Africa are often mentioned, because West Africa is the place where she was purchased and embarked. However, that does not necessarily mean that she was a native of that location, because slaves were often brought from miles distant places (Shields 99). Unfortunately, her early life is not much known. It is stated that she “does not seem to have preserved any remembrance of the place of her nativity, or of her parents, excepting the simple circumstance that her mother poured out water before the sun at his rising - in reference, no doubt, to an ancient African custom” (Odell 10). There is also no evidence of her African name. One might assume that at the age of seven or eight, she should have been able to remember her African name. However, it must be taken into account that Wheatley experienced a stressful dislocation from her parents and community. It is said that one of the typical reactions of kidnapping is impaired memory. Moreover, the shocking reality of the Middle Passage2 between the African and American coast must have caused her trauma, that she was never able to reimagine it. It is unimaginable what she must have seen and experienced on few months long voyage3 from her homeland to the unknown world, where only 75 of the 96 enslaved Africans survived to be sold in Boston, Massachusetts (Caretta 7). After reaching the coast of the New World in 1761, she was sold and as expected in the eighteenth-century America also renamed. This was an act of erasing the personal identity of enslaved people and redefining them as a property. Thus, a new person, Phillis Wheatley, was born. She was given a first name after the ship4 which brought her to America and a surname after her new owner John Wheatley. John Wheatley, a slave owner and a prominent Boston tailor, purchased Phillis to serve his wife Susanna, who wanted to train a young faithful woman servant. The little girl was a

2 Commercial goods from Europe were shipped to Africa for sale and traded for enslaved Africans. Africans were in turn brought to the regions, in what became known as the "Middle Passage". African slaves were then traded for raw materials, which were returned to Europe to complete the "Triangular Trade". 3 Historians speak about twelve million Africans kidnaped from their native land between the years of 1492 and 1870, of which around a million died because of abuse, disease or exhaustion even before they left Africa and around a million died from illnesses, suicide, rebellions, and shipwreck (Caretta 2). 4 According to www. slavevoyages.org database, the ship Phillis sailed with slaves each year between 1760-1764. Phillis Wheatley was on the voyage in 1761. The ID of the voyage is 25481. The name of the vessel owner was Timothy Fitch, rig of vessel Brigantine. 9

refuse slave, one whose age rendered her of little market value. She was described to be thin, frail, and seemingly timid (Smith 402). Despite her ill appearance caused by the voyage and the change of climate, the Wheatley’s family bought her anyway and it is said Mrs. Wheatley treated her later as a daughter. Caretta assumes that Phillis Wheatley “may have appealed to Susanna and John Wheatley as a surrogate for their late beloved daughter, their last-born child” (14), which died at the age of seven. That is how the extraordinary relationship between the mistress and her slave could be partly explained. It was suggested that Phillis Wheatley harbored no feelings of revenge and hatred against anyone for her state in life and that she bore only feelings of love, devotion, and gratitude for her slave family (Sistrunk 393). John and Susanna Wheatley were parents of eighteen-year-old twins Mary and Nathaniel. It is mentioned in Memoirs (1834) by Margaretta Matilda Odell that Mary was the one who saw Phillis “endeavoring to make letters upon the wall with a piece of chalk or charcoal” (10). Many scholars (e.g. Harris, Isani, Shields) conclude from that and from the presumptive place of her origin in West Africa, that Phillis Wheatley may have spoken, and written, rudimentary Arabic. That might be the explanation of her immediate aptitude for writing and reading. However, there has been not much written to support this possibility. Will Harris sets his argument on Wheatley’s probable Fulani5 background and membership among the Fulani elite (1). It is stated that more than 96% of the Fula are Muslims and as their religion requires the knowledge of the Koran, that dramatically increased the likelihood of her exposure to Arabic language as well as foundational Islamic religious beliefs before arriving in the New World. Shields suggests that this possible heritage was essential to her success as a poet (qtd. in Harris 1). Phillis Wheatley did not experience the type of slavery that was applied in the Southern colonies, where slave’s labor took a crucial part in economy because of cultivation fields of cotton, rice and tobacco. On the other hand, slavery in the North, where farms were smaller, was not needed. Therefore Massachusetts was never dependent on slave labor. There were likewise dozens of rules and restrictions, however the literacy rules in Massachusetts were not so strict for instance like in South Carolina, where the law against literacy was enacted and anyone who would have taught slaves to write or read had to pay “the sum of one hundred pounds current money” (Gates 96). Slaves in the North were usually used as household

5 Fulani, or The Fula are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa and the Sahel. Wheatley comes from West Africa, likely Gambia or Senegal. Therefore she is believed to be Fulani. 10

servants. Without a shadow of doubt, when we put aside the misery of bondage itself, Phillis Wheatley was lucky to become a slave in Boston and in Wheatley’s household, where she was given many privileges unusual for a slave. Even though a slave herself, she was not allowed to associate with the other slaves. Which on the other hand put her in a difficult position, because she was not equal to slaves or to whites. Consequently, Phillis Wheatley was taught to read and write by Mary Wheatley, a daughter of her owners. Mary taught her history and geography, introduced her to rudimentary Greek and Latin. Phillis Wheatley was also acquainted with the Bible and British literature, particularly John Milton and Alexander Pope, by whom her style of writing was influenced. Soon she was able to compose her poems. “To the University of Cambridge in New England”, was probably the first poem she wrote, but not the first that appeared in print, on the other hand, this poem is still often quoted. The poem which gained her fame in her time was the elegiac poem about the popular Boston preacher, the Reverend George Whitefield. “An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Late Reverend, and Pious George Whitefield” earned her a patronage of Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, who later sponsored the publication of Wheatley’s book of poems (Franke 226). Wheatley mostly wrote elegies to prominent figures or friends. The strong religious theme is often apparent in her work, as she embraced the idea of Christianity. She even occasionally comments on the struggle for American independence, where she shows that she favoured the cause of the colonists rather than that of England. With this view she demonstrated that the American fight for freedom is also supported by some black people. Yet she does not mention the biggest events of those days. As Robinson points out “she lived literally in the very midst of revolutionary furor, the Boston Massacre taking place on King Street, only a few paces from the Wheatley household where she lived . . . Yet nowhere . . . does Phillis indicate that such an event took place” (30). The only poem published during her lifetime that openly comments the growing tension between Britain and the colonies is “To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty on His Repealing the American Stamp Act 1768”, where she thanks the King for the cancellation of the Stamp Act and for freeing Americans from the tyranny of the British Parliament, and asks him to act on their behalf again (Carretta 68). Wheatley reveals very little of herself in her poems, rarely does she use the personal “I”. Therefore, the poem written in 1768, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”, where she 11

opens up about her life a little bit, became her best-known work after her death. However, she generally avoided the topic of slavery, or at least did not openly write about it, which is going to be discussed afterwards. Wheatley’s family were so proud of her that they were known to show her off and the doors of their household were often open to Boston society, which wanted to see this phenomenon. Moreover, she gained a reputation as a lively and brilliant conversationalist, therefore she was regularly invited as a curiosity to their drawing rooms to converse with learned men about literature and significant topics of the day (Applegate 123). Due to her chronic asthma, Wheatley was sent to England to seek medical help. At least that is the argument often repeated in all of the articles. She was accompanied by Nathaniel Wheatley, who presented her to the society there. She was already known for her poetry skills, since some of her verses appeared in print in Boston. But the colonists were not willing to publish a book of verse by an African. Therefore while in England, Wheatley turned to London’s publishers. Consequently, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral were published in September 1773 in A. Bell publishers in London. The book was put on sale in England, but also in America and it is said it sold well (Applegate 124). It contained thirty-nine poems, fourteen of which were elegies, the rest were occasional verses. Wheatley was not the only one who was able to publish poetry or prose while still in bondage (O’Neale 502). The other two were Jupiter Hammon and George Moses Horton. Nevertheless, she was the first to publish a book of poetry, which for a slave was a monumental task. It was arranged for Wheatley to meet with King George III. and his court. However the King was not present in London at that time and Wheatley could not wait for his arrival, because her stay in England was interrupted by a letter which informed her of the sudden illness of her mistress. Wheatley was forced by her devotion to her to leave London earlier (Applegate 123). Even though by staying in England she could have gained freedom, according to the Somerset decision6 of the British judiciary, which proclaimed that all slaves who set foot on British soil were from that moment free. However, Wheatley returned back to America where she spent the last months alongside her mistress.

6 Somerset decision is a famous judgment of the Court of King's Bench in 1772 on labour law and human rights, which held that chattel slavery was unsupported by the common law in England and Wales, although the position elsewhere in the British Empire was left ambiguous. 12

Phillis Wheatley gained manumission shortly after the publication of her book. Year after that, her mistress died, followed by her husband. Later, she married a free black man, John Peters, who was a man of all work, a grocer, a baker, a lawyer and a physician. However, he was not able to secure the family financially. It is mentioned that he lost all of his property during the war of Independence, therefore they became very poor and finally Wheatley was abandoned by him. She gave birth to three children, two of which died during her life and the third one followed Wheatley after her death soon. As it is obvious, the years of freedom were not so joyous as one could expect. It was a hard fall from the heights of fame as a poet to the depths of poverty. She tried to secure her family as a seamstress and a common servant. Wheatley also tried to publish a second volume of her poems and letters, but failed to find enough subscribers (Shields 193). Without the support of her white friends, who struggled economically after the War of Independence, she died in December 1784 at the age of thirty-one and was buried in “a grave without a stone to tell that one so good and so gifted sleeps beneath.” (Odelle 24). Shortly after her death a tribute to Phillis Wheatley was published in the Boston Magazine ):

Last Lord’ day, died Mrs. Phillis Peters (formerly Phillis Wheatley), aged thirty-one, known to the literary world by her celebrated miscellaneous poems. Her funeral is to be this afternoon at four o’clock, from the house lately improved by Mr. Todd, nearly opposite Dr. Blufinch’s at West Boston, where her friends and acquaintances are desired to attend. (qtd. in “The Story of Phillis Wheatley. A True Story.” 253)

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2. Years of early controversy and admiration

Phillis Wheatley was brought to America during the fight over the North American colonies between Britain and France, which is known as the Seven Years War or French and Indian War. Brits had won, however it led to conflicts with American colonies. Because of the war British government set new taxes on imported goods. In 1765 another law called the Stamp Act was passed, however most colonists refused to pay for the stamps. Two years later new taxes were commanded to collect. Riots occurred in colonies, mostly in Boston, therefore most of the taxes were removed, except for the one on tea. Another conflict known as “Boston Tea Party” led to the formation of the First Continental Congress and finally to the American War of Independence, during which the Declaration of Independence was written and the new nation was born. Wheatley lived through this whole revolutionary era and died only a year after Britain officially recognized the independence of the United States of America. American revolution was deeply influenced by the Enlightenment movement which came with the idea of freedom and equal rights. Americans were mostly inspired by John Locke’s statement, that individuals have a right to “Life, Liberty, and Property”. However, not all individuals could reach these rights, as we can read in David Hume’s comment about black people, who were according to him “naturally inferior to the whites”, there were “no ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts no sciences” (qtd. in Gates 95). Also the scientists of the Enlightenment came with the conclusion that black people were the evolutionary link between (white) men and apes, thus they were often valued less than a property. Since 1619 when first captured black Africans were purchased in America as slaves, slavery had soon been publicized as advantageous labor system and an institution suitable for blacks who were dependent on white superintendence. Slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write by law in the majority of colonies, and also discouraged from learning proper English. Therefore illiteracy was an unmistakable sign of a slave. Slaves could not even associate with other slaves in large numbers, so that they would not rebel against their masters. These illiteracy precautions worked as a resolute tool of control and meant a lack of information and subordination to sources that were carefully selected by white people, so as not to cause any riots. 14

Since the colonies were fighting for their freedom from England, black people identified with the plight of white America and dreamed of their own freedom. The importance of literacy was seen as a crucial weapon in the fight for black freedom. By discovering and applying the power of literacy, many doors had been gradually opened for black people. As a result of that they started to present themselves as human individuals with souls and intellectual capacity. Wheatley contributed to this demonstration of intelligent human beings by her poetry, which influenced discussions of the humanity of slaves and started to complicate the Enlightenment debate of human nature and human rights. As it was mentioned earlier, Phillis Wheatley started to write her poems as a teenager, which led to great interest in her, but also to controversy. Not all of the listeners believed her authorship, therefore she underwent an oral examination in front of eighteen of Boston’s most notable citizens. Among them was John Hancock, who would later gain fame for his signature on the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Hutchinson, the governor of the Massachusetts colony. The questions they asked her are not known, we can only speculate whether they inquired her about Greek and Latin gods or asked her to recite passages from Milton or Pope. What is known is the result of this questioning, a letter underwritten by those eighteen gentlemen:

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 PHILLIS, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few Years since, brought an uncultivated Barbarian from Africa, ad 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. (qtd. in Gates 98)

The letter was presented in a preface to her book of verse which was published later in London. This testimony of authenticity did not only provide credibility of her authorship, moreover it was questioning her own bondage and even more the reality of all in bondage (Nott 28). Wheatley’s position of an “uncultivated Barbarian” as she was referred to in a preface to her book of poems, had changed. She was not anymore seen as just another slave among thousands, therefore hardly worth notice. Wheatley was now recognized as a poetical genius, 15

therefore her comings and goings became worthy of public report. Mukhtar Ali Isani maps the reception of Phillis Wheatley during the years of her fame in contemporary print and points out that “to win recurring attention in these pages is impressive” (270), because the colonial newspaper was almost only four pages long. Isani found out that four month after the publication nine British periodicals reviewed the work and all the reviews were favorable (270). Although the London Magazine admitted:

These poems display no astonishing power of genius, but when we consider them as productions of a young untutored African, who wrote them after six months casual study of the English language and of writing, we cannot suppress our admiration of talents so vigorous and lively. (qtd. in Isani 263)

Wheatley left London before her collection of poems emerged from the press. But her return to Boston was noticed in the Boston Gazette. Nott sees some irony in the reception, because the citizens of Boston had declined subscription of her book of poems the year before her arrival (30). Yet, the American magazines were very generous by describing her as famous, extraordinary and ingenious (Isani 262). Wheatley gained access to a public network through her book, which was read aloud in many drawing rooms in London and Boston. She was seen as a miracle, a young black female slave reading poems that she had written. The content or the quality of her verse had not been the major issue yet. As a result of her fame, she gained many adherents among famous people. One of them was General Washington, to whom Wheatley composed a poem in October 1775. She sent it to him at his headquarters in Cambridge along with a brief note. The future first president of the United states wrote a reply to thank her for the poem:

If ever you come to Cambridge or near headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the muses and to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensation. I am with great respect, your obedient, humble servant, George Washington. (qtd. in Teller 223)

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Another American founding father had the opportunity to get familiar with Wheatley’s poems and as the eighteenth century resources prove, they were even acquainted in London in 1773. Benjamin Franklin writes about this meeting to his cousin Jonathan Williams Sr.:

Upon your Recommendation I went to see the black Poetess and offer’d her any Services I could do her. Before I left the House, I understood her Master was there and had sent her to me but did not come into the Room himself, and I thought was not pleased with the Visit. I should have enquired first for him; but I had heard nothing of him. And I have heard nothing since of her. (qtd. in “From Benjamin Franklin to Jonathan Williams, Sr., 7 July 1773.”)

One of her great admirers was also Jupiter Hammon, father of African American literature, whose poems were published in 1761. He praised her abilities in a poem he wrote in 1778 “An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley”. Although they were contemporaries, it is noted they had never met (Applegate 125). Wheatley’s fame came to the ears of the biggest French philosopher of that era, Voltaire, who was present in England at the same time as Wheatley and learnt about her poetry skills (Shields 49). In 1774 Voltaire commented her work by saying “Fontenelle7 was wrong to say that there would never be any poets among the Negroes: there is currently a Negress who makes some very good English verse.” (qtd. in Applegate 125). Regardless of the fact that Wheatley was examined and passed, there were still many people who were undermining her achievements. One of them was a founding father of the United States of America and the nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson, who was also a slave owner. He proclaimed that the black race was incapable of producing a writer of verse and refused to acknowledge her as an artist, by stating: “Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches of poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry.” (qtd. in Walker 235). Jefferson specifically called into question Wheatley’s authorship of the book: “Religion indeed has produced Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet.” (qtd. in Walker 235). He wrote and simultaneously misspelled Wheatley’s first and last names (Wigginton 681). Jefferson’s attack suggests how strong an argument against African enslavement Wheatley’s presence represented.

7 Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757) was a French author and an influential member of three of the academies of the Institut de France. 17

Phillis Wheatley’s poetry slowly started to open the eyes of the people to the intelligence of the African American race, and thus had an everlasting impact on the abolitionist movement in years to come. Even though Massachusetts was the first state with the slave ownership and was a centre of a slave trade, it was also the first state, where it was possible for slaves to sue their owners for freedom and later it became also a centre for the abolition movement, whose major effort was to “exhibit individual Blacks of prominent achievement to disprove allegations of innate African inferiority” (O’Neale 502). In the 1830s abolitionists working to end slavery rediscovered Wheatley’s poetry. That is how she unintentionally influenced an strengthened anti-slavery feelings and early abolitionists used her as an illustrative testimony that black people could be both artistic and intellectual. The anti-slavery newspaper the Liberator, founded by a prominent American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, published from February until December in 1832 Wheatley’s poems from the 1773 edition. He printed about one poem a week which probably motivated others to publish her poetry or early biography (Shields 53). One of the repeatedly cited biography which republished also Wheatley’s poems and some letters, is Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave, released in 1834 by Margaretta Matilda Odell, the great-grandniece of Phillis’s slave owner Susanna Wheatley. The first Wheatley’s biography was written fifty years after her death and is based on the stories Odell’s grandmother knew and passed down about the poet (Harris 1). Despite Odell’s biography being the most famous, it was not the first. Presumably the first basic story of Wheatley’s life was written surprisingly by a French Catholic priest Henri Grégoire8 (1750-1831) in Paris, who was a keen abolitionist and disseminated these ideas in his work De la littérature des Nègres, by showing readers that blacks are equal to whites in every way, including their intellect. He partly based Wheatley’s story on a letter from a French consul in Boston, who claimed to know John Peters, Wheatley’s husband. Grégoire recognized Wheatley’s achievement (Shields 53). Even though he did not find her poems beautiful, he defended them based on their content, not only because they were written by a black woman, as it was generally done by American abolitionists. Shields points out that

8 Henri Jean-Baptiste Grégoire was a French Roman Catholic priest, constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader. He was an ardent abolitionist of human slavery and supporter of universal suffrage. 18

Grégoire could afford his objectivity as he was far from black bondage and cotton American fields (53). At that time many people still believed that black people were not as intelligent as white. As an argument against this statement was set an example of Phillis Wheatley, a slave who achieved great things only by giving her the opportunity. Moreover, abolitionists intended to point out that holding human beings in bondage was contrary to the spirit of freedom at that time. Abolitionists in general were not concerned with judging Wheatley’s poetry, although even then some came with the accusation of not being strictly against slavery. However, they needed her work to construct their arguments for the equality of the races. For this purpose was her poetry sufficient and therefore it was preferable to mention Wheatley for positive reasons. The frequently quoted poem was “On Imagination”, especially lines 9-22 (Shields 52), which served the abolitionists needs:

Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies, Till some lov'd object strikes her wand'ring eyes, Whose silken fetters all the senses bind, And soft captivity involves the mind.

Imagination! Who can sing thy force? Or who describe the swiftness of thy course? Soaring through air to find the bright abode, Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God, We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, And leave the rolling universe behind: From star to star the mental optics rove, Measure the skies, and range the realms above. There in one view we grasp the mighty whole, Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul. (qtd. in poetryfoundation.org)

Wheatley’s poetry continued to be used by black as well as white antebellum American abolitionists as evidence for the humanity, equality, and literary talents of people of African 19

descent and gave encouragement to those who were fighting for it during the time when slavery was dividing the country. With the end of the Civil War in 1865, their fight became successful with the introduction of the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished slavery and gave African Americans hopes for better life conditions. Although the country was united officially, inside it stayed divided, because not all of the states were inclined to the equal rights for black people. The hostile atmosphere continued with social, in some states also legal segregation of not only facilities and service, but also opportunities such as education, medical care, transportation, housing or employment. The aim of segregation was to keep black people separate from white America as much as possible. The abolition of slavery was a major step, however more steps had to be done to achieve true equality.

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3. An example of an African American achievement

Unfortunately, abolition of slavery did not change the thinking of many white Americans, who were not willing to acknowledge the African Americans as equal. Therefore the rate of lynchings of blacks around the beginning of the new century was at an all-time high, mostly in the South. However, the Great Northward Migration, when many black people moved from the Southern states to escape Jim Crow laws, increased the riots in the North likewise. It is noted that more than 3,000 people had been lynched from 1889-1918 (thebrowniesbook.com). The lynching grew even stronger after World War I, when the veterans demobilized and a competition for jobs and housing among white and black citizens started. The postwar social tensions resulted in the period of anti-black white supremacist terrorist attacks, which are known as The Red Summer. For the whole year of 1919, black communities all across the nation became the scene for vicious mob attacks, lynchings, and arson. That is when the new civil right organization tried to interfere. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed in 1909 to reinforce the effort of African Americans and to advance justice for their community.9 During the interwar years its members, including one of the founders W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African American who earned a doctorate, devoted their energy by working for legislation, lobbying and educating the public. Therefore, in 1910 Du Bois founded the official magazine of the NAACP, The Crisis. It is the oldest black oriented magazine in the world, even though nowadays operates online, it still tries to raise awareness to intersectional social justice issues (thecrisismagazine.com). In addition to that, Du Bois created a first magazine for African American children and youth. He did so as a reaction to the mainstream degrading representation of black children that rose during the Red Summer of 1919. The first issue of The Brownies´ Book was published during the Harlem Renaissance in January 1920. It was published monthly until December 1921, when the publishing of the magazine was through the economic reasons discontinued.10 There were only 24 issues. The magazine highlighted black culture, literature and the achievements of black children. Du Bois stated seven goals of the magazine:

9 The association works continuously and nowadays its aim is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination (www.naacp.org/). 10 The Brownies’ Book was resurrected in 2014. See more www.thebrowniesbook.com 21

To make colored children realize that being "colored" is a normal, beautiful thing, to make them familiar with the history and achievements of the Negro race, to make them know that other colored children have grown into beautiful, useful and famous persons, to teach them a delicate code of honor and action in their relations with white children, to turn their little hurts and resentments into emulation, ambition and love of their homes and companions, to point out the best amusements and joys and worthwhile things of life, to inspire them to prepare for definite occupations and duties with a broad spirit of sacrifice. (qtd. in "The Brownies' Book.")

To achieve those goals it was important to apprise young readers with other successful African Americans. Hence apart from current events, music, games, plays, poetry, literature, also biographies were included. On three pages of the August issue in 1920, a story of a young girl Phillis Wheatley was presented. It was stated, why Phillis Wheatley should be respected by black Americans:

In the first place, she is the first Negro in America to win prestige for purely intellectual attainments. And she won it, oh so well! Secondly, her writing influenced and strengthened anti-slavery feeling… (She) showed by her writing that she favored the cause of the colonists rather than that of England. Thus she proved that the sympathies of Negroes are always enlisted in the fight for freedom even when, … their own is yet denied. (“The Story of Phillis Wheatley. A True Story.” 251)

This was not the first example of her legacy in the beginning of the new century. Even earlier, Charles F. Heartman (1883-1953), a German immigrant and a famous American collector, who notably contributed to African American literary collection, produced the first collected edition of Wheatley’s poems and letters in 1915. In a preface to this volume, a puerto rican immigrant with African and German ancestors, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg11 (1874-1938), suggested that Wheatley’s work should be judged according to the poet’s age

11 Once he was told that Blacks had no history, therefore he began his lifelong research, which was completed by building and named in his honour the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, where his extensive collections of books, periodicals, photographs and historical documents have their rightful place. www.aetna.com/foundation/aahcalendar/1987schomburg.html 22

and the poetry of the age, not by relative standards (qtd. in Matson 223). Schomburg was a great Wheatley’s admirer, who recognized a race pride manifestation in her poems, hence he called her “a jewel - priceless to the literature of the Negro in America” and he set her as an example for young African Americans by relating her to “a beacon light” that illuminates their path (qtd in Matson 223). Another work was published only a year later by a lawyer and another big Wheatley’s admirer, G. Herbert Renfro. He had shown his enthusiasm in Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley by saying “ Nature has designed Phillis for a queen, not for a slave.” (qtd. in Shields 56). Indubitably, there were many others, who tried to refer to Wheatley’s existence and her contribution in the fight for African American freedom. Owing to the fact that in the beginning of the twentieth century the majority of Blacks had become literate, since the thousands of African American teachers had been trained from the time of the Civil War, the African Americans intensified their work to gain their civil rights. Consequently, with more educated African Americans, more studies about Wheatley were written. The African American literary historian and educator Benjamin Brawley (1882-1939) included a biographical statement, along with a serious assessment of Wheatley’s poetry, in his 1918 survey The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States. He is one of those, who accused Wheatley of imitating Pope, however he softened his critique by stating that “of course, any young writer working under the influence of Pope and his school would feel a sense of repression” (32). Brawley also remarked that her poetry would have been much better, only if she had lived in the era and influence of the romantic writers (34). Although he is not her passionate defender or a great admirer, he admits that Wheatley has her place in the history of American literature secure, even though it is not a large one (34). Despite the early twentieth century Wheatley’s adherents contributed greatly to ensuring that her poetry has not been forgotten, they actually did not examine any of her poems. (Shields 2008) The New Negro Renaissance, which brought African American artistic styles and themes into the larger American cultural sphere, has change that. The Harlem Renaissance, as it is also called, encouraged African American artists and writers to produce original works. Therefore African American poetry, drama and fiction flooded America. Neither did the African American scholars stay behind and began to research the black 23

authors of the past. However the Great Depression and the Second World War muted for a while African American efforts for changes in a literary and social sphere. One would expect that all African Americans would glorify and promote Wheatley’s poetry, but the opposite was true. During the 1920s the opinions about Wheatley began to change, after many new African American scholars began to study Wheatley’s poetry more closely. They started to criticize her for not being angrier about the fact that she was being kidnapped from her parents in Africa and for the humiliation of being kept in bondage. Others undermined her fame, that she gained it only due to her position of a black female slave, which was at that time a curiosity, and not for her poetry skills. It was also the case of an African American poet James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), the next head of the NAACP, who was disappointed and upset that Wheatley had not spoken out more strongly against slavery. Johnson claims “But one looks in vain for some outburst or even complaint against the bondage of her people, for some agonizing cry about her native land.” (Johnson xxvii). Johnson expressed his opinion on Phillis Wheatley in a preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), where he also comments there that even though in two poems she refers to Africa as her home, she did it in a way that suggests that leaving Africa was the best thing that happened to her (xxvii). On the other hand, Johnson acknowledged that Wheatley is an important poet, though she does not belong to the greatest American poets (xxvii). Regardless of the fact that he admitted that Phillis Wheatley has never been given her rightful place in American literature, he does not include her next to the poets in his 1922 book of Negro poetry. One of her biggest critics of the first half of the twentieth century was Jay Saunders Redding (1906-1988), who became the first African American professor at Cornell University’s College of Arts and Science in 1970. In his book To Make a Poet Black, which he published in 1936, he strongly denounces Wheatley’s poetry by stating “Some soft-headed whites and blacks have been led to believe that her poetry deserves to be considered as something more than a historical relic and everyone’s been trying to make excuses for her ever since.” (11). He felt that her poetry is not real in the sense, that she should have made it more sensitive to members of her own race. In contrast to an African American recognition of Wheatley in the early twentieth century, is a statement of an Caucasian American writer William J. Long from 1913, which he made after examining Wheatley’s poetry. 24

She sings like a canary in a cage, a bird that forgets its native melody and imitates only what it hears. We have called attention to her simply because she is typical of scores of miner poets of the Revolutionary period who, with a glorious opportunity before them, neglected the poetry and heroism of daily life in order to follow a literary fashion.” (qtd. in Shields 56).

For Long it could not be understood, why Wheatley did not use her poems for displaying a rich variety of experience, which she gained during the violent kidnapping. According to Shields, Long’s commentary shows his anti-neoclassic attitude and he accused him of being culturally biased (56). In the first half of the twentieth century, whether among blacks or whites, we read mostly about male Wheatley’s critics and admirers. There were not many women, moreover black women, studying and publishing articles. However, some exceptions could be found. One of them was the civil right activist, suffragette and one of the first African American women to earn a college degree, Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954). As it was already discussed earlier in a case of W. E. B. Du Bois, African American intelligence felt the need to teach coloured children to be proud of their race. Correspondingly, Terrell saw the importance of increasing the coloured youth’s respect for his African ancestors. Therefore, when Terrell took part in organization of the 1932 bicentennial celebration of George Washington’s birthday, she contributed by writing a script to a biographical pageant play about Phillis Wheatley. Terrell explained the reasons of using Wheatley’s story by saying:

When you call George Washington ‘First in peace’, please remember that a young slave girl was the first person in the world, publicly, to refer to him in that way. It was Phillis Wheatley, a young African poetess, who wrote a poem in his honor and in one of the lines addressed him as ‘First in peace and honours’, several years before the Declaration of Independence was signed (221).

As it has been already mentioned, Washington wrote a reply to thank Wheatley for the poem. Terrell used this document interaction between them to dramatize the major events of Wheatley’s life and the Washington poem was used as the centerpiece (O’Malley 227). Thus by showing the native ability and the brilliant literary success of an African girl stolen from 25

her native land and sold as a slave in America Terrell wanted to encourage the African American youth to be proud of someone from their own group, who was successful in George Washington’s time. It is also worth noting that Terrell named her daughter after Phillis Wheatley, by which she highlighted her admiration of the poet. The play showed the main points in Wheatley’s life starting with her capturing in Africa, being sold to Weatleys, her acquisition of literacy, revealing of her writing talent, her correspondence with George Washington and her visit in England. The pageant ended with Wheatley’s wedding. The difficult marriage and her death in poverty were omitted. Terell highlighted the positive aspects of Wheatley’s story and emphasized her bond with the Wheatley’s family (O’Malley 233). Terrell had to face many obstacles to produce the play. In those days, when Jim Crow rules were still applied in the Southern States, the capital city Washington D. C. witnessed a play, which aroused a great deal of controversy among whites and also blacks, considering the fact that many African Americans voluntarily played slaves in a play that honored the country’s slaveholding first president. Although the primary creators of the production were African Americans and a total of 235 performers of all ages had roles in the story, the white help was also important. Therefore the preparations for the performance showed that it is not impossible to bridge a racial divide (O’Malley 244). The play was supposed to be performed outdoors at the foot of the grand Washington monument, but it was seen as too public place for a pageant performed by and about African Americans. For that reason the venue was changed to Armstrong High School, where on 19th November 1932 a single performance took place. And as the Terrell’s correspondence showed, the play had a major success. One of the letters she received was from C. K. Berryman, a political cartoonist for the Washington Star and Pulitzer Prize winner, who objectively commented the play by saying “ I went to the Armstrong NOT EXPECTING MUCH, but I take pleasure in telling you how very agreeably I was surprised and I wish to congratulate you upon your splendid work and the excellent manner in which it was presented.” (qtd. in O‘Malley 249). Others congratulated her likewise and agreed that this story of a young talented negro girl should be known to every coloured child. Terrell met her goal, which was to teach African American children that they are citizens of the United States and as such, they must take part in every national movement in which other groups join (Terrell 221). 26

Even though Phillis Wheatley earned her first accusations for not being more angrier about her enslavement, she was more often given as an example of an African American achievement. The American society was overloaded with racist and stereotypical images of black people, therefore the young African Americans needed exceptional role models to overcome these discouragements and build their race pride which would strengthen their efforts in gaining their civil rights.

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4. A new wave of controversy

Moving to the second half of the twentieth century, it was evident that segregation was still an issue, although during the Second World War it started to break down in the North. Nevertheless still many African Americans lived in the South, where being black meant to be a second-class human being. They lived in poverty and were separated from the rest of the community. These unbearable conditions encouraged more African Americans to move South, therefore the next wave of mass migration began. The fight for the African American civil rights grew stronger and it slowly started to be rewarded. The first important changes came with ending segregation in the Armed services by president Harry Truman and years later with declaration of the Supreme Court that segregated schools were illegal. Then the segregation on buses was declared as unconstitutional, which was initiated by Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat for a white man. African Americans encouraged by these events started to boycott everything in all situations where they felt discriminated. In 1963 in a mass demonstration in Washington, Martin Luther King gave his famous speech of full racial equality. The following year the Civil Rights Act was enacted that outlawed discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin. The segregation was legally over, however the racial difficulties were deeply rooted in Americans, which caused many riots on both sides of the invisible barricade. African Americans did not give up. After assassination of Martin Luther King they wanted to get their justice by fighting. Later they came with a more sufficient idea of voting African Americans representatives. In 1988 their success was evident by Jesse Jackson, who came close to be chosen as the candidate for the Presidential election. In the second half of the twentieth century, when the African Americans tried to gain their equal rights, a progressive interest in African American history and culture could be noticed. Many scholars began to examine African American authors more fully, however as Flanzbaum points out “the actual substance and language of Wheatley’s poetry has been overlooked in favour of a discussion of her historical significance” (72). Hence, in the age of extreme race consciousness in the late 60s and 70s, Wheatley and her poetry became controversial again. Primarily the Black Arts Movement dismissed Wheatley, because her poems were not seen as inspiring the black identity or pride (Flanzbaum 73). The participants in the Black 28

Arts Movement wanted to create, through activism and art, new cultural institutions and disseminate a message of black pride. They resisted traditional Western influence, therefore Wheatley, who was taught by white people, reflected more white, rather than African American culture. LeRoi Jones, a founder of the movement, degrades Wheatley’s poetry by saying “Her pleasant imitations of eighteenth century English poetry are extreme and, finally, ludicrous departures from the huge black voices that splintered Southern nights” (20). The members of the movement accused Wheatley of accepting the way whites viewed blacks. That is why she did not correspond with their purpose and the studies about Wheatley were almost demised. Apparently as a consequence her name was excluded from the popular anthology Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America, published by MacMillan in 1968. According to Matson, by some sort of conspiracy Wheatley was kept out of most of the books, especially the text-books on literature used in the schools (Matson 223). Similarly the black leaders involved in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s spoke out strongly against Wheatley and accused her for thinking as white. Matson describes the common view of Wheatley at that time as “the white man’s ideal of a good ‘nigger’ - so good, in fact, that she was almost white” (222). The poet was taught by whites, wrote for whites, therefore her critics suggested that she also thought white and that is why she was not sensitive enough to the needs of her own people. Gates notes that Wheatley became “something of a pariah in black political and critical circles, . . . critics had a field day mocking her life and her works (most of which they had not read)” (qtd. in Carretta 201). In regard to John and Susanna Wheatley, the poet’s slave owners, they did not escape criticism either. Smith accused them that their intention was to find a young passive slave, who would be completely controlled by them through their upbringing. In her opinion they did it for a purpose of not being a threat to their household or the white world, because by controlling her thinking, she would embrace their value system (404). This way they could do with her whatever they wanted to, even to teach her how to read and write. Therefore Smith indicates that Wheatleys never saw Phillis Wheatley as a great person, she was only “a nice pet who reflected their creation . . . their showpiece” (404). Furthermore Smith points out that Wheatley’s would probably not have been known if it had not been for Phillis Wheatley (404). Robinson had a similar opinion, suggesting that the Boston society must have regarded her as a curiosity, “something of a racial mutant” (36), not as one who displayed intelligence. 29

Second criticism of Phillis Wheatley was centred on her neglection of her racial identity in her verse. Many of her critics blamed Wheatley for not demonstrating a kinship to black people in her life or writings (Carretta 13). Matson argues that Wheatley was proud of her blackness, because she referred to herself as Afric or Ethiop, which Matson admits could be also due to the intention to capitalize on her reputation as the famous black poet of Boston (224). Likewise according to Walker, Wheatley’s reference to sun worship and elegies expressed her cultural and racial pride (237). Thirdly her critics speculated about her attitude to slavery, they thought she silently and passively accepted bondage, and was not interested in the most vital issue of her time, human freedom. All critics find it difficult to understand why she ignored to comment directly on her fate as a slave, why she was so dispassionate about that (Sistrunk 397). Moreover, Robinson points out that she wrote her elegies about those who were slave owners, even the famous preacher John Whitfield used slave labor at his orphanage in Georgia (37). One poem in particular, which is according to Gates “ the most reviled poem in African American literature” (qtd. in Waldstreicher 547), put Wheatley into a bad light. Majority of her detractors understood her verse in the poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” as gratitude, because her “benighted soul” was saved from the “pagan land” when enslaved.

“On being brought from AFRICA to AMERICA”

‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die." Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin’d and join th’ angelic train.' (qtd. in Davis 194)

In the 70s Applegate conceded that “her lack of outrage is understandable - after all, Phillis Wheatley, because of the unusually good circumstances of her life while living with the Wheatleys, and because of her training, was not likely to view her being brought to America as something to protest” (124). Applegate apparently did not see the ambiguity of 30

Wheatley’s verse yet. Matson concludes that Wheatley used double meaning in her poems, which starts to reveal only to the close reader (228). However, Applegate notices that Wheatley at least once openly showed her protest, namely in her poem “To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth”, where she thanked the newly appointed earl for freeing the colonies from the tyranny of Britain (124). The next criticism is due to the fact that her detractors blamed her for not doing much for her own race. Smith in the early 70s raised a question “Did Phillis Wheatley do anything to sustain and perpetuate blackness, and give rise to Black people?” (406). Evidently her answer was “no”, because she points out that none of the poems mention the harsh treatment of slaves. Smith attacks Wheatley that apparently she did not want to risk her safety, because the least thing she could do for black people was to teach them how to read and write. Smith went on with her critics by referring to other slaves who learned how to read and write under difficult circumstances and who used this talent into reflection of their plight as slaves and thus she urged all black people, that “everything that Blacks do must be done in the interest of black people . . . especially in a racial society” (40). Sondra O’Neale disagrees with Smith, who wrote an article twelve years later as a reaction to Smith’s critique of Wheatley. O’Neale argues that black thought in the eighteenth century was different to black thought in the twentieth century, therefore no one could have expected an open militant outspoken anti-slavery statements from a slave in America’s public media, and indicates that neither of Wheatley’s critics suggested what other tactic could Wheatley use (510). Further O’Neale defends Wheatley, that she did write about slavery through the use of Biblical imagery, because she understood Christianity as the religion of an oppressed people and covertly compared it to slave’s natural yearnings for freedom (500). Shields later added that Wheatley desired the liberation for all of humanity (39). Another not pleasant comment concerning Wheatley was presumably meant towards her admirers, that they should not hold her in such high esteem, because according to some she was only an imitator of neoclassical authors. However, Smith, whose significant criticism is mentioned earlier admits that Wheatley’s poetic talents deserve recognition, though she regrets Wheatley did not use it to benefit others slaves (407). Applegate observes that Wheatley was often remembered only as “an oddity or a proof of Negro intellect” (123) and is disappointed by that. Further Applegate asserts that Wheatley made a worthy contribution by her poetry and should be recognized as a minor, but notable revolutionary American author 31

(123). With the same opinion came Matson, who agrees that Wheatley was not a great poet, but argued that neither was the American poetry of that time and that the ignorance of Wheatley during the 60s was “a miscarriage of justice, because Phillis Wheatley has much to offer black (and white) readers of today” (223). Wheatley’s poems started to be read and judged differently after Julian Dewey Mason (1931-2018), a poet and a scholar, published the critical edition of Poems on Various Subjects in 1966. Sistrunk and other scholars accepted and supported Mason’s approach and followed him in not judging Wheatley’s poetry by standards of the twentieth or nowadays twenty-first century, but in relationship to the poetry of the eighteenth century (398). Similarly, other aspects were suggested to be taken into account, as the environment where she lived, her personal limitations, and so forth. During the late 60s and especially in the 70s and 80s a number of scholars came to understand and recognize an achievement of her poetry. They started to consider her use of biblical allusions and its symbolic application as a statement against slavery, therefore new studies, such as notable works of William H. Robinson in early 80s, stimulated growing interest in Wheatley Studies. An example of the new interest in her poetry was expressed by the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, held at Jackson State University in Mississippi in 1973, which sparked a generation of Wheatley scholars (Jamison 408). Later Wheatley started to be included in the anthologies again, moreover started to be acknowledged as the first black poet and the only one mentioned for the Revolutionary Period. It is obvious that Phillis Wheatley’s life and her poetry raised many strong discussions mainly in the 60s, when African Americans worked intensively on gaining their civil rights. The conflicting views of Wheatley were presumably due to the fact that the African American society was fragmented in its fight for civil rights, and very likely the clash of the militant and non-violent approach reflected into the perception of the young poet. As Shields observes “it is no small wonder Wheatley’s poetry is even read today and that it is probably just short of a miracle that she began to enjoy a marked degree of popularity in the late 1960s and 1970s” (60).

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5. The vivid legacy

Since the late 1980s African Americans have started to participate in the political sphere. They have become officeholders, mayors, governors, senators and members of Congress. In 2001 Colin Powell became the first black person to serve as the United States Secretary of State, followed by the first black woman in this position, Condoleezza Rice. The climax of African American growing political influence was the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president and the first African American president of the United States. African Americans have started to be successful and influential not only in the political sphere, but also in art, science, sport, business or entertainment industry. For decades now black and white people have been working and living side by side, unfortunately not always in harmony, which is proved by many incidents, where unarmed African Americans were killed by white police officers. Many riots broke out in the past decades in the United States as a protest against police brutality towards black people. Therefore Black Lives Matter movement, which campaigns against violence and systemic racism, was established in 2013. The revived popularity of Phillis Wheatley is often justified by her massive and intensive critique in the 1960s, because many scholars did not agree with interpretations of her work and life, and started their own independent research. They re-read her works and started to judge her poetry from a different point of view. Especially “On Being Brought from Africa to America”, which is one of the most anthologized and supposedly the most misunderstood of her poems (Waldstreicher 547). Recent scholars do not see just Wheatley’s advocacy of Christianism in the poem. Shields suggests that the poem conceals a powerful message, which is a criticism of white Bostonians and Londoners, who failed “to recognize her human equality, as well as that of all Blacks” (78). With this view agrees also Mary Catherine Loving, who suggests that Wheatley emphasized the words by capitalization and italics in order to subvert language (68). Erkilla believes that Wheatley knew how to speak with a double tongue, because only with the sophisticated use of ambiguity and irony could Wheatley criticize white hypocrisy and oppressive racial codes (205). Other studies from recent scholars show that Wheatley wrote perhaps 145 poems, most of which are now lost. In 1779 Phillis Wheatley wanted to publish a second volume of her poems and letters, but was unsuccessful. One of the poems that was listed to be a part of the volume was “Ocean”. Nothing else was known about the poem, until 1998 when the original 33

four page manuscript from 1773 was offered at auction in New York. The successful bidder, who specializes in historic newspapers and documents paid a total of $68,500 and added it to his collection12, which is available to all those who want to learn more about African Americans (Mason 78). Throughout the years the historians who specialize in Phillis Wheatley successfully found at least a dozen notes and letters. At the auction in 2005 one of Wheatley’s letters, dated 1776, was surprisingly sold for $253,000. It was reported that it was the highest price ever paid for a letter by an African descent woman (Carreta x). The popularity of Wheatley was noted also at the annual meeting of the American Philological Association in New York City in 1996, where Wheatley’s significance as a seminal figure was indirectly reasserted. Furthermore, in 2003, she was also honored with a statue at the Boston Women’s Memorial13. Nowadays Wheatley appears in all college-level anthologies of American literature and several selections of her poetry is always included in addition with some of her letters. Over the years, there have been many of those who commented on Phillis Wheatley and her work. As Walker summarizes it “in those years Wheatley transformed from a lesser appreciated literary figure to a heralded canonical bard” (237), which is also the merit of three notable scholars - Shields, Gates and Carretta. John C. Shields (1944-2017) was a Distinguished Professor of English at Illinois State University. It is worth mentioning that Shields heard about Phillis Wheatley for the first time only while pursuing a doctorate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1977. He was supposed to teach a new seminar about African American literature and the first on the list was Phillis Wheatley, an unknown poet for Shields. He did not know at the time that this seminar would change his life. Since then he specialised on Phillis Wheatley and published many articles about her. In 1988 he edited Collected works of Phillis Wheatley, also co-edited (with Eric D. Lamore) New Essays on Phillis Wheatley (2011) and authored the monographs Phillis Wheatley and the Romantics (1988) and Phillis Wheatley's Poetics of Liberation (2008). Since the time Shields was acquainted with Wheatley’s poems and her life, he became her passionate defender. Even though he was not convinced from the beginning of her

12 The Mark E. Mitchell Collection of African-American History. 13 The Boston Women's Memorial is a trio of sculptures on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Boston, Massachusetts, commemorating the lives of Phillis Wheatley, Abigail Adams, and Lucy Stone. 34

exceptionality as a poet. In a preface to Collected works of Phillis Wheatley (1988) he admits “Phillis Wheatley is not a great poet, but she is a good one.” (qtd. in Shields 46). Quite obviously another twenty years of research and re-reading Wheatley’s poems changed his mind and in Phillis Wheatley’s Poetics of Liberation (2008) he corrected his previous judgement with a statement “She is not just a great American poet; she is a great poet.” (46). Shields closely collaborated and shared his knowledge about Phillis Wheatley with another notable scholar, Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1950), an African American Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Gates contributed to Wheatley’s studies with his short book The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America’s first Black poet and her encounters with the founding father published in 2003, where he tells the story of Phillis Wheatley and explores the essential role that Wheatley has played in shaping the black literary tradition. And lastly, Vincent Carretta (1945), a Professor of English at the University of Maryland, who specializes in the eighteenth century authors, particularly those of African descent. His input to Wheatley’s studies is a scholarly edition of Wheatley’s poetry and letters in Complete Writings (2001) which he supplied with exhaustive introduction. Since 2001 many new letters and also some poems have been discovered, therefore Carretta released a new edition of Wheatley’s poetry, The Writings of Phillis Wheatley (2019), which contains all of the known surviving writings, including those only recently discovered. He also authored the first full-length biography Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (2011), where he uncovered new details from Wheatley’s life and life of her husband, reconstructed the transatlantic network she developed, and even more provided an analysis of Wheatley’s poetry. New biographies and even children's stories and fiction for young adults inspired by her life are still being published. For instance Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (1996) by Ann Rinaldi; A Voice of Her Own: The Story of Phillis Wheatley, Slave Poet by Kathryn Lasky (2003), illustrated by Paul Lee; Phillis Wheatley: Young Revolutionary Poet (2005) by Kathryn Kilby Borland; Phillis’s Big Test (2008) by Catharine Clinton and illustrated by Sean Qualls; My name is Phillis Wheatley: A Story of Slavery and Freedom (2009) by Afua Cooper; Heav’nly Tidings From the Afric Muse: The Grace and Genius of Phillis Wheatley Poet Laureate of the American Revolution (2017) by Richard Kigel and many others. 35

This list of books makes one think what is so remarkable about Wheatley, that many authors adapted her story for children. When talking about Phillis Wheatley, she is often described as a black slave woman, however, a child, or a girl would be more suitable. Wheatley was in fact a child poet, because she composed her first poems at the age of eleven. And when she was only fourteen, one of her poems was published in a Boston newspaper. That is why her story is so appealing to many children’s books authors, because it shows young readers that knowledge is not useless, and that literacy is important to achieve great things. This way her legacy will keep influencing new generations of Americans.

36

Conclusion

This thesis is a short excursion to the life, work and legacy of Phillis Wheatley and it contributes to raising awareness about African American literature. Not only it acquaints the reader with a young black slave woman, who “thought and wrote”, it gives also a glimpse into American history and the gradual development of an African American fight over equal rights and opportunities. Phillis Wheatley, certainly the most famous African American girl/woman of her day, was alive to defend herself during the first controversy and she proved that she was not “an uncultivated Barbarian”, as she was addressed. Nevertheless, she was often underestimated also posthumously. Her poetry was misinterpreted as well as her life, furthermore she was called by various names - a racial mutan, a canary in a cage or a clever imitator. Fortunately for her, there were many of those, who understood her potencial, saw the ambiguity in her verse and helped her to achieve acceptance and a respect among white and black audiences. Although Phillis Wheatley’s work and life remains to open sharp discussions even nowadays, she earned her place in the American literature, and her story as well as her poems are still intriguing readers in all age groups. That Phillis Wheatley’s story is also thought-provoking proves the article which I came across by coincidence. I have learnt there, that the study of African American literature in the United States always starts with Phillis Wheatley and students are encouraged to read the book The Trials of Phillis Wheatley by Henry Louis Gates Jr. The author of the article and the college professor Greg Shafer describes his experience of teaching African American literature in his class in 2014. He shares his own thoughts and observations. He also includes engaging comments of his students when they were discussing Phillis Wheatley. The students, who were both black and white, concluded that Wheatley was only doing what she could to be accepted in the white world. However, they raised more thoughtful questions and discussed how the culture of racism influences their behavior and identity. (Shafer) In 1974, Eleanor Smith, asserted that when teaching Wheatley, it should be taught from the black perspective. Furthermore, Smith strongly argues that “most blacks have been educated by Whites to think white and thus promote white racism . . . it is up to us to re- educate ourselves to think Black and to move creatively beyond the white syndrome.” (403). 37

Forty years later, and the white syndrome is still present in the African American literature class, where a twenty-five year old African American student claims “We still see ourselves as being defined by white people and a system that sees greatness, beauty, and eloquence in being white.” (qtd. in Shafer). Another African American student added “I wonder if the color line will ever be totally extinguished. It defines who we are and how we act. We are haunted by it.” (qtd. in Shafer) It is evident that some African Americans still feel marked by the white society. They have the feeling that they have to prove themselves more than whites do. Whether this feeling is always justified, or whether they are sometimes just oversensitive and the feeling is unreasonable, it is not for me to judge. There are certainly mistakes on both sides. The aim of this thesis was fulfilled. I have learnt new information not only about Phillis Wheatley, but also about many notable scholars, who were expressing their diverse theories about her life and poetry. It was interesting to observe how the opinion on one poet changed according to the political situation. Phillis Wheatley was praised, but I think more likely tolerated in the Revolutionary Era. She was not a threat to the Boston society, therefore they enjoyed her poetry and even her presence. In my opinion, she was used for abolition missions during the nineteenth century, therefore they praised her without a critical view. The exaggerated criticism came in the 1960s, when Wheatley did not fit in the Civil Rights Movement propaganda. And nowadays, her legacy opens discussions about black identity in the racial American society.

38

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