In history we always hear stories about certain events; however, it’s rare to find pieces of history written by a first person source during that time period. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Morals is just this. It is a collection of poems written by Phillis Wheatley. She is iconic in African American history. This collection of poems was the first piece of literature published by an African American. Wheatley created this book with the means of showing her writing ability however she changed history forever. These poems showed how life was for Wheatley during that time period. The beauty in Wheatley’s poetry demonstrated that African Americans were just as talented as English folk during this time period. In her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” Wheatley recalls how life was for hard African Americans who were viewed down upon purely on the color of their skin.[1] Wheatley wanted to show that African Americans were more than just slaves. [2] Wheatley was brought to America as a slave and was sold to the Wheatley family in August of 1761. She has no idea she would have her first poem published only nine years later. Lucky for her, Wheatley’s owners educated her, and she was able to learn how to read and write only a year after coming to America . This was ironic because the education of slaves was not encouraged during that time period. In fact, it was illegal. Without the Wheatley family’s help, Wheatley would have never had the ability to write poems. Taking a deeper look into some of her poems, Wheatley became popular with many people of all races during that time because she wrote in a way that people could relate to. In her poem “To a Lady On The Death of Her Husband” she writes “Enough thou never yet wast known to say, Though millions die, the vassals of thy sway: Nor youth, nor science, not the ties of love, Nor ought on earth thy flinty heart can move. The friend, the spouse from his dire dart to save, In vain we ask the sovereign of the grave” .The words cut deep like a knife. With events such as The Revolutionary War going on, Death of husbands were unfortunately common. Many widows were able to resonate with the words of the poem. They found comfort knowing that they were not the only ones going through loss. Another reason why many people loved Wheatley’s work was because of her religious background. She was Christian and wrote about religious matters in some of her poems. In her poem Deism, Wheatley wrote “Nail’d was King Jesus on the cross for us For our transgressions he sustain’d the Curse”. People were used to the religious teachings of god through the bible however Wheatley was able to teach religious matters through her poetry which was rare at the time. The most iconic thing about Phyllis Wheatley was that she challenged the norm for African Americans. She made people respect African Americans more because of her writing ability. She demonstrated that they had the ability to be more than just slaves. This is the reason why I chose this piece of literature for the museum.
[1] “Some view our sable race with a scornful eye, “Their colour is a diabolic die” (Aloian 2013).
[2] “Remember, Christians, Negro’s, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train” (Aloian 2013).