Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. So I've
Speaker 1: had the same experience multiple times over the last year
Speaker 1: or so, which is that I've been walking through museum
Speaker 1: or a library and I've seen an exhibit on Phillis
Speaker 1: Sweetly and thought we really should do a podcast episode
Speaker 1: on her now. Then that keeps happening for at least
Speaker 1: a year, while for various reasons, other topics wind up
Speaker 1: up at the top of the list. So Phillis Sweetly
Speaker 1: is somebody who's basic biography I learned about and whose
Speaker 1: work I read in school. But it was only when
Speaker 1: I got into the research for today's show that I
Speaker 1: realized how very, very incomplete a lot of that was,
Speaker 1: and how dramatically people's perceptions and their interpretations of her
Speaker 1: life and work have shifted since eighteenth century. I mean,
Speaker 1: people have thought wildly different things about Phillis Sweetly over
Speaker 1: the years. So today we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: not only Phillis Sweetly, who was one of only three
Speaker 1: people in North America to publish their work while enslaved,
Speaker 1: but also how her place in the world of literature,
Speaker 1: especially black literature, rose and then fell, and then rose
Speaker 1: again during her life and after her death. Phyllis Wheatley
Speaker 1: was likely born in what's now Senegal or the Gambia
Speaker 1: in about seventeen fifty three. We don't have details about
Speaker 1: exactly where she was from, or which African nation or
Speaker 1: people she belonged to. Even the connection to the Senegambia
Speaker 1: region is a little tenuous. The slave ship that took
Speaker 1: her to Boston, Massachusetts did stop there, but it also
Speaker 1: made several other stops in western Africa, so it's really
Speaker 1: tricky to pin down. The crew moved south along the
Speaker 1: African coast as they tried to carry out the orders
Speaker 1: of the ship's owner, Timothy Fitch, which were to quote
Speaker 1: purchase one hundred or one hundred ten prime slaves. Phillis
Speaker 1: herself did not really fit that description of quote prime slaves.
Speaker 1: She was about seven, judging by the fact that she
Speaker 1: lost her front baby teeth by the time she arrived
Speaker 1: in Boston. She was also small, and she was in
Speaker 1: poor health. She probably would not have been purchased during
Speaker 1: the ship's first stops in Africa. But only later on
Speaker 1: and a final attempt for the crew to fill that
Speaker 1: quota they'd been given. The ship finally departed with ninety
Speaker 1: five enslaved Africans aboard, so Phillis may have been from
Speaker 1: farther south along the African coast, possibly as far south
Speaker 1: as Sierra Leone. We also don't know what Phillis Wheatley's
Speaker 1: name was before she was taken from Africa, or even
Speaker 1: what language it was in the ship she was aboard.
Speaker 1: Arrived in Boston, as we mentioned, and that happened on
Speaker 1: July eleven, seventeen sixty one, with seventy five enslaved Africans
Speaker 1: still living after the eight week transatlantic journey. In August,
Speaker 1: John and Susannah Wheatley purchased her, and they named her
Speaker 1: after the ship they bought her from, which was called
Speaker 1: the Charming Phyllis, also known simply as Phyllis. By the
Speaker 1: time the ship arrived in Boston, Phillis herself was in
Speaker 1: poor enough health that she was considered to be refuse,
Speaker 1: which was the term that was used for enslaved people
Speaker 1: who were too old, sick, or injured to be sailable.
Speaker 1: Charles J. Stratford, who was descended from one of Susannah
Speaker 1: Wheatley's relatives described it this way. Quote In or about
Speaker 1: the year seventeen sixty one, a slave ship arrived in
Speaker 1: Boston Harbor with the cargo of slaves. Aunt Wheatley was
Speaker 1: in want of a domestic. She went on board to purchase,
Speaker 1: and looking through the ship's company of living freight, her
Speaker 1: attention was drawn to that of a slender, frail female child,
Speaker 1: which at once enlisted her sympathies. Owing to the frailty
Speaker 1: of the child, she procured her for a trifle, as
Speaker 1: the captain had fears of her dropping off his hands
Speaker 1: without emolument by death. John Wheatley was a prosperous tailor
Speaker 1: and merchant, and he and his wife Susannah had twin children,
Speaker 1: Mary and Nathaniel, who were about eighteen at the time,
Speaker 1: and the family quickly realized that Phillis was really bright.
Speaker 1: John and Susannah gave their children, especially Mary, permission to
Speaker 1: tutor her. By the age of about nine, just two
Speaker 1: years after she arrived in Boston, Phyllis had learned how
Speaker 1: to speak, read, and write in English. In addition to
Speaker 1: doing extensive Bible study, she also started learning Latin and Greek,
Speaker 1: including translating part of Avid's Metamorphoses, expanding it into the
Speaker 1: poem Naobian Distress for her children Slain by Apollo. Later on,
Speaker 1: she also studied literature, history, geography, and astronomy, and she
Speaker 1: also read lots and lots of poetry. Her work is
Speaker 1: most often compared to English neo classical poet Alexander Pope,
Speaker 1: but she read the work of other poets, including some
Speaker 1: from the colonies. One of these was Mather Byles, whose
Speaker 1: seventeen forty four poems on Various Occasions may have inspired
Speaker 1: the structure and arrangement of Phillis's own book. She was
Speaker 1: so voracious in her education that she was allowed to
Speaker 1: spend more time in study than in domestic labor at
Speaker 1: the Wheatly home. This was well before the rise of
Speaker 1: anti literacy slave codes, which were passed and most of
Speaker 1: the South in the early nineteenth century and made it
Speaker 1: illegal to teach enslaved people to read and write. But
Speaker 1: even so in the eighteenth century it was not typical
Speaker 1: at all to educate enslaved people. Even though she had
Speaker 1: no formal education. Phillis Wheatley's tutoring and her self study
Speaker 1: also went well beyond what would have been expected for
Speaker 1: eighteenth century white women. In seventeen sixty seven, two men
Speaker 1: from Nantucket visited the Wheatly home and they told a
Speaker 1: story about how they had been sailing there from Boston
Speaker 1: when a storm struck their ship. They had narrowly escaped disaster.
Speaker 1: Phillis overheard their conversation and she wrote a poem about it,
Speaker 1: which became her first published work on Mrs Hussey and Coffin,
Speaker 1: and that was printed in the December twenty one, seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty seven edition of the Newport, Rhode Island Mercury. She
Speaker 1: was fourteen at the time. By seventeen seventy, so just
Speaker 1: a few years later, tensions were rising between Britain and
Speaker 1: its colonies. Although the Wheatly family were by all accounts loyalists,
Speaker 1: meaning that they were loyal to Britain, Phyllis's sympathies were
Speaker 1: with the Patriots cause. She attended church at the Old
Speaker 1: South Meeting House, which is a place that comes up
Speaker 1: over and over again in stories about the Revolutionary War,
Speaker 1: and in seventeen seventies she wrote two poems about relevant
Speaker 1: events of the day that made it really clear which
Speaker 1: side she was on the first, on the death of
Speaker 1: Mr Snyder murdered by Richardson. She describes the murder of
Speaker 1: a boy named Christopher Snyder or Cider at the hands
Speaker 1: of customs officer Ebenezer Richardson. In this poem, she describes
Speaker 1: Christopher her as a murdyr. The second is on the
Speaker 1: affray in King Street on the evening of the fifth
Speaker 1: of March seventeen seventy. It's not completely clear whether the
Speaker 1: second one, which is obviously about the Boston massacre, has survived.
Speaker 1: There is a poem with that name that was published
Speaker 1: in the Boston Evening Post on March twelfth, seventeen seventy,
Speaker 1: but it was not signed, and while some critics say
Speaker 1: it's the same poem, others are not so sure. That
Speaker 1: was a pretty common way of describing the Boston massacre,
Speaker 1: which is why it's believable that two different poets could
Speaker 1: have written a poem about it with roughly the same title.
Speaker 1: It was also in seventeen seventy that Phyllis Wheetlely wrote
Speaker 1: the poem that would make her famous. This was called
Speaker 1: an Elegaic Poem on the death of that celebrated divine
Speaker 1: and eminent servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learning
Speaker 1: George Whitefield. Whitefield was an Anglican deacon who toward the
Speaker 1: colonies that employed a style of preaching that was incredibly
Speaker 1: dynamic and charismatic. He was really instrumental in the religious
Speaker 1: revival that was known as the Great Awakening. How to say,
Speaker 1: these are not the snappiest poem titles. They all tend
Speaker 1: to run a little long. Uh. Phillis wrote the elegy
Speaker 1: shortly after Whitefield died on September seventeen seventy. It was
Speaker 1: first circulated as a pamphlet in cities like Boston and Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy one, it was reprinted along with the
Speaker 1: funeral sermon that Ebenezer Pemberton had delivered on October eleventh,
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy. This reprinting gave Wheatley an audience on both
Speaker 1: sides of the Atlantic, especially after she sent a copy
Speaker 1: to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon. In addition to his
Speaker 1: preaching tours in the colonies, white Field had been the
Speaker 1: Countess's personal chaplain. Almost instantly, Phillis Wheetley became the most
Speaker 1: famous African in Britain and its colonies, very well known
Speaker 1: as a poet, and we will talk about what followed
Speaker 1: and the now famous Phillis Wheatley's writing career. After a
Speaker 1: quick sponsor, Phillis sweetly kept writing new poems in the
Speaker 1: early seventeen seventies. Although some of them were published in
Speaker 1: pamphlets and newspapers, she didn't really want to just scatter
Speaker 1: them all around, publishing them and lots of different places.
Speaker 1: She wanted to publish them together in a book, and
Speaker 1: by seventeen seventy two she had written enough to do it.
Speaker 1: But to fund this book's publication, she needed to find
Speaker 1: subscribers to commit to buying the work in advance. I
Speaker 1: imagine this as sort of a colonial version of Kickstarter.
Speaker 1: Either she or Susanna Wheatley, you're possibly both of them,
Speaker 1: working together, started placing advertisements for this forthcoming book, with
Speaker 1: Ezekiel Russell as its printer, but sometime that summer Phillis
Speaker 1: turned her attention to publishing in England instead. The reasons
Speaker 1: for this are not entirely clear. There are a number
Speaker 1: of accounts that claim that she wasn't able to find
Speaker 1: enough subscribers in the colonies, but They don't really cite
Speaker 1: primary sources for that, but there is a seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: three letter from one of her subscribers, John Andrews of Boston,
Speaker 1: who suggested that it was really for financial reasons. Basically
Speaker 1: she was getting better terms from a London press. The
Speaker 1: not enough subscribers argument usually comes along with the explanation
Speaker 1: that racism was the root cause of her not finding
Speaker 1: an audience in the colonies. And this was not racism
Speaker 1: as in white readers maliciously not wanting to read the
Speaker 1: work of a black person. It was really racism, as
Speaker 1: in white readers disbelieving that a black person could have
Speaker 1: even written it. For the institution of slavery to exist
Speaker 1: the way that it did in the American colonies, it
Speaker 1: had to rest on the idea that Africans were less
Speaker 1: than human and were inherently less intelligent than Europeans. So
Speaker 1: there were definitely people on both sides of the Atlantic
Speaker 1: who thought that Wheatley's poems must be some kind of fraud.
Speaker 1: We we dealt with this by getting some of Boston's
Speaker 1: most prominent men to sign an attestation that she really
Speaker 1: was the author of her own poems. This included Massachusetts
Speaker 1: Governor Thomas Hutchinson, Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver, the Reverend Mother Biles,
Speaker 1: and the Reverend Samuel, mother nephew and son of Cotton Mother,
Speaker 1: the Reverend Charles Chauncey, and John Hancock. A copy of
Speaker 1: this attestation, dated October seventeen seventy two, appeared in Lloyd's
Speaker 1: Evening Post and British Chronicle in September of the following year,
Speaker 1: and a slightly reworded version of it was part of
Speaker 1: Wheatley's first book as well. And here's what the book
Speaker 1: version said. Quote, we whose names are underwritten do assure
Speaker 1: the world that the poems specified in the following page were,
Speaker 1: as we verily believe, written by Phillis, a young Negro
Speaker 1: girl who but a few years since brought an uncultivated
Speaker 1: barbarian from Africa, has ever since been and now is
Speaker 1: under the disadvantage of serving as a slave and a
Speaker 1: family in this town. She has been examined by some
Speaker 1: of the best judges, and is thought qualified to write them.
Speaker 1: Although it's become part of the popular lure about Phyllis
Speaker 1: Wheatley that this took place, there's no actual evidence that
Speaker 1: the undersigned men actually met in a group and interrogated
Speaker 1: her about her work. There's even a children's book that
Speaker 1: hinges on this supposed meeting. It's actually a much more
Speaker 1: likely scenario that there was a big meeting that was
Speaker 1: documented to have happened on October um, and that she
Speaker 1: took advantage of this gathering of prominent men to stop
Speaker 1: by and and say, hey, would you please sign this
Speaker 1: at a station that I actually wrote my own work.
Speaker 1: This at of station was not the only step that
Speaker 1: she took and getting her book published in England, and
Speaker 1: in getting people to believe that she had really written
Speaker 1: what was in the book. She also wrote to William Legg,
Speaker 1: the Earl of Dartmouth, in October of seventeen seventy two,
Speaker 1: sending him a copy of a poem she had written
Speaker 1: about him. The Earl had just been named Secretary of
Speaker 1: State for the Colonies, and she both celebrated his appointment
Speaker 1: in the poem and included another attestation of her authenticity,
Speaker 1: this one signed by Nathaniel Wheatley. Phillis also made a
Speaker 1: third connection to Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, the
Speaker 1: one whose personal chaplain had been the Reverend George Whitefield,
Speaker 1: the Countess, Lord Dartmouth, and Susannah Wheatley were all connected
Speaker 1: through the Countess of Huntingdon's Connection, which was a network
Speaker 1: of evangelical churches and chapels. Phillis dedicated her manuscript to
Speaker 1: the Countess, who advocated for its publication in England through
Speaker 1: publisher Archibald Bill. Accompanied by Nathaniel Wheatley, Phillis went to
Speaker 1: London in seventeen seventy three to oversee the publication of
Speaker 1: her book. Sometimes this trip is also described as being
Speaker 1: for the sake of her health. She was definitely there
Speaker 1: to work on the book. By this point she'd established
Speaker 1: such a name for herself that she had a huge
Speaker 1: list of notable people to visit. Probably the name that
Speaker 1: people would be most likely to recognize today is Benjamin Franklin,
Speaker 1: who was at the time in London. If you've listened
Speaker 1: to the Dido Elizabeth Bell's segment of our episode three
Speaker 1: Astonishing Bells, you'll recall that we talked about the Somerset Case,
Speaker 1: and this was a court case decided in seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: two in which Lord Mansfield ruled that an enslaved person
Speaker 1: brought to England could not be sold back into slavery.
Speaker 1: In some places, this was interpreted as freeing all slaves
Speaker 1: in England, which it didn't really do, but it did
Speaker 1: mean that when Phillis Wheatley arrived in London the following year,
Speaker 1: under English law, she could not be forced back into slavery.
Speaker 1: It's possible that this is one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: she decided to publish her book in England rather than
Speaker 1: in the colonies. People in Boston definitely knew about the
Speaker 1: Somerset case by the time she made that decision. Fellows
Speaker 1: sweet Lee's first and only published book, which was Poems
Speaker 1: on various subjects religious and moral, was published on September one,
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy three. This is the first published volume of
Speaker 1: poetry by an African woman in the English speaking world.
Speaker 1: It included that attestation of her authenticity that we read earlier,
Speaker 1: along with a letter from John Wheatley briefly detailing where
Speaker 1: she came from and how she had been educated, and
Speaker 1: concluding quote relation is given by her master, who bought
Speaker 1: her and with whom she now lives. The book's frontispiece
Speaker 1: featured a portrait of her ringed in the words Phillis
Speaker 1: Wheatley negro servant to Mr John Wheatley of Boston. That
Speaker 1: portrait is likely the work of enslaved African painter Scipio Moorehead,
Speaker 1: who was also the subject of Wheatley's poem to s M.
Speaker 1: A young African painter, on seeing his works. If you're
Speaker 1: wondering about that wording of negro servant, A lot of
Speaker 1: people who were enslaved were referred to as servants, especially
Speaker 1: in England and New England. A few weeks after Phillis
Speaker 1: arrived in England, Susannah Wheatley became seriously ill, and Phillis
Speaker 1: returned to Massachusetts to attend to her. Her ship arrived
Speaker 1: on September sixteenth, seventeen seventy three. Four days later, the
Speaker 1: Boston Gazette noted her arrival among notable passengers aboard her ship,
Speaker 1: calling her an extraordinary poetical genius. At some point not
Speaker 1: long after that, Phillis was manumented by the Wheatlies, and
Speaker 1: a letter to David Wooster dated October eighteenth, seventeen seventy three,
Speaker 1: she wrote, quote, since my return to America, my master has,
Speaker 1: at the desire of my friends in England, given me
Speaker 1: my freedom Her book had received at least nine reviews
Speaker 1: in British papers, and many of those reviews had really
Speaker 1: condemned the Wheatlies continued enslavement of her. So, even though
Speaker 1: she could really not have been forced to return to
Speaker 1: slavery under the Somerset ruling, after having been in England,
Speaker 1: the wheat Laves made that official. Phillis also took the
Speaker 1: precautionary step of sending a copy of her manumission papers
Speaker 1: to a contact she had in London for safe keeping.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about what we know of Phillis
Speaker 1: Wheatley's life as a free woman, including a famous exchange
Speaker 1: with George Washington, but we're gonna first take a little
Speaker 1: sponsor break. By the time Phillis Swheetlely returned from England,
Speaker 1: the Colonies were definitely headed toward war with Britain. That was,
Speaker 1: of course, the Revolutionary War. George Washington was named Commander
Speaker 1: in Chief of the Continental Army on June nineteenth, seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy five, and on October twenty six of that year,
Speaker 1: Phillis Sweetley sent him a poem she had written in
Speaker 1: his honor, along with a letter. The letter read quote,
Speaker 1: I have taken the freedom to address your excellency in
Speaker 1: the enclosed poem and intreat your acceptance, though I am
Speaker 1: not insensible of its inaccuracies. You're being appointed by the
Speaker 1: Grand Continental Congress to be General Lissimo of the Armies
Speaker 1: of North America. Together, the fame of your virtues excite sensations.
Speaker 1: Not easy to suppress your generosity. Therefore, I presume will
Speaker 1: pardon the attempt, wishing your excellency all possible success in
Speaker 1: the great cause you are so generously engaged in. This
Speaker 1: poem ends with the widely quoted lines, Proceed great chief,
Speaker 1: with virtue on thy side. By every action, let the
Speaker 1: Goddess guide a crown, a mansion, and a throne that
Speaker 1: shine with gold unfading. Washington be thine that Washington is
Speaker 1: in all caps. Washington's reply, dated February tenth of the
Speaker 1: following year, began with an apology for taking so long
Speaker 1: to answer. It then went on to say, quote the
Speaker 1: style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your great
Speaker 1: poetical talents, in honor of which, and as a tribute
Speaker 1: justly due to you, I would have published the poem
Speaker 1: had I not been apprehensive that while I only meant
Speaker 1: to give the world this new instance of your genius.
Speaker 1: I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This and
Speaker 1: nothing else determined me not to give it place in
Speaker 1: the public prints. If you should ever come to Cambridge
Speaker 1: or near headquarters, I shall be happy to see a
Speaker 1: person so favored by the muses and to whom nature
Speaker 1: has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I
Speaker 1: am with great respect, etcetera, etcetera. They're historians are divided
Speaker 1: about whether she actually met George Washington and Cambridge. But
Speaker 1: it cracks me up that this letter is basically like
Speaker 1: I would have published this incredibly flattering poem you wrote
Speaker 1: about me, but then people might think I'm vain. Perhaps
Speaker 1: to get around that accusation of vanity, George Washington also
Speaker 1: sent the poem to Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Reid and closing
Speaker 1: it in a letter that talked about all kinds of
Speaker 1: other various unrelated matters before concluding quote, I recollect nothing
Speaker 1: else worth giving you the trouble of unless you can
Speaker 1: be amused by reading a letter and pol addressed to
Speaker 1: me by Mrs or Miss Phyllis Wheatley and searching over
Speaker 1: a parcel of papers the other day, in order to
Speaker 1: destroy such as were useless. I brought it to light again.
Speaker 1: At first with a view of doing justice to her
Speaker 1: great poetical genius. I had a great mind to publish
Speaker 1: the poem, but not knowing whether it might be considered
Speaker 1: rather as a mark of my own vanity than as
Speaker 1: a compliment to her, I laid it aside until I
Speaker 1: came across it again in the manner just mentioned. Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Colonel Reid apparently took the hint. The poem was published
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania Magazine in April of seventeen seventy six, and
Speaker 1: other publications picked it up from there. With the onset
Speaker 1: of the Revolutionary War, things got a lot more difficult
Speaker 1: for Phyllis Wheatley. Susannah Wheatley had died on March third,
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy four. Then Nathaniel Wheatley had actually died a
Speaker 1: year before. His mother, Mary and John Wheatley both died
Speaker 1: in seventy seventy eight, So the Wheatly's had kept Phillis
Speaker 1: in bondage, but they'd also essentially been filling the role
Speaker 1: of her patrons. Without their support, she had trouble selling
Speaker 1: poems and making ends meet, especially since the war meant
Speaker 1: that reader's attention was really focused on other matters. On
Speaker 1: April one, seventy eight, Phyllis Wheatly and a free black
Speaker 1: man named John Peters announced their engagement. They married on
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving Day of that year, which was November six. Most
Speaker 1: biographers have not been very kind to John Peters. That
Speaker 1: kind of paint him as a shiftless man who could
Speaker 1: not get his act together, But in reality, things were
Speaker 1: extremely difficult for free black people in New England during
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War. Jobs were hard to find, the pay
Speaker 1: was often so low that it wasn't enough to live on.
Speaker 1: So John Peters tried his hand at running a grocery
Speaker 1: and a bakery in a saloon, but he just was
Speaker 1: not able to get a stable, finding antil footing under him.
Speaker 1: He also referred to himself as a doctor and at
Speaker 1: one point practice law, and some biographers have made a
Speaker 1: great big deal of the fact that he didn't have
Speaker 1: a license to do either of those, even though there
Speaker 1: was not a licensing body that he could have applied
Speaker 1: to you at the time, Yeah, that was pretty common
Speaker 1: practice this in this for people to hang out their
Speaker 1: shingle and say they were a professional in a field
Speaker 1: where today we would have a lot more um paperwork
Speaker 1: and applications and approvals before you could use those words.
Speaker 1: For sure, that is not exclusive to John Peters at all.
Speaker 1: We really don't know much at all about the last
Speaker 1: few years of Phillis Wheatley's life, except that they seem
Speaker 1: to have been lived in poverty. John Peters wound up
Speaker 1: in and out of jail for debt, and Phillis may
Speaker 1: have had as many as three children, although there are
Speaker 1: no records kept of their births or deaths. She died,
Speaker 1: most likely due to complications from childbirth, on this number
Speaker 1: five sev four, at the age of thirty one, with
Speaker 1: most sources agreeing that her newborn died on that same day.
Speaker 1: Before she died, Phillis sweetly had written a second book,
Speaker 1: which she had tried to publish in seventeen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: but she couldn't find sufficient subscribers to do it again.
Speaker 1: This was during the Revolutionary War. It was difficult. That
Speaker 1: manuscript unfortunately has been lost. John Peters does seem to
Speaker 1: have gotten his financial worries straightened out after the war
Speaker 1: was over and led an upstanding life from that point.
Speaker 1: He is the last person known to have had access
Speaker 1: to that manuscript. He may have taken it with him
Speaker 1: when he eventually left Boston, but exactly where he went
Speaker 1: or what happened to the manuscript is just not clear.
Speaker 1: Fifty seven of Phyllis's poems survived today. Forty six of
Speaker 1: them were published during her lifetime. In nine six, what
Speaker 1: was believed to be her last poem was unearthed. That
Speaker 1: was titled an Elegy on Leaving, and it was published
Speaker 1: in Armenian Magazine, which would later become Methodist Magazine, in
Speaker 1: July four. This magazine was edited by John Wesley, the
Speaker 1: founder of Methodism, and it seems as though whoever sent
Speaker 1: the poem to him incorrectly attributed it. According to research
Speaker 1: by Caroline Wiggington, it was really the work of Mary Wattley,
Speaker 1: first published in her collection Original Poems on several occasions
Speaker 1: twenty years earlier. This was probably an honest mistake somebody made.
Speaker 1: As we've talked about before, spellings were not very standardized
Speaker 1: at this period, so it was it would have been
Speaker 1: easy for Wheatly and what Lely or Watterly to have
Speaker 1: been spelled in nearly the same or exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: During and after Phillis Wheatley's lifetime, her work was used
Speaker 1: by abolitionists as evidence that Africans were humans with souls
Speaker 1: and intelligence equal to that of Europeans. But not everyone
Speaker 1: had seen her work as evidence of the intrinsic humanity
Speaker 1: and equality of Africans. Thomas Jefferson criticized her work heavily
Speaker 1: in Notes on the State of Virginia in seven he wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches
Speaker 1: and poetry among the Blacks. It's misery enough, God knows,
Speaker 1: but no poetry. Love is the particular eastrom of the poet.
Speaker 1: Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only,
Speaker 1: not the imagination. Religion indeed, has has produced a Phyllis Wheatly,
Speaker 1: but it could not produce a poet. The compositions composed
Speaker 1: under her name are below the dignity of criticism. I
Speaker 1: want to time travel and maybe um uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to say bad things to Thomas Jefferson. That's what's up.
Speaker 1: Aside from Jefferson's disparagement, Wheatley's work started to fall out
Speaker 1: of favor in the nineteenth century, as it was overshadowed
Speaker 1: by slave narratives and the work of people like Frederick Douglas.
Speaker 1: This was especially true since Wheatley's enslavement had taken place
Speaker 1: in such relative comfort. We don't want to downplay the
Speaker 1: fact that she was still an enslaved person, but there
Speaker 1: were certainly stories that were a lot darker out there circulating.
Speaker 1: So her stood in sharp contrast to the writing that
Speaker 1: was tied at the time to the Antebellum South. By
Speaker 1: the turn of the twentieth century, writers and critics were
Speaker 1: pointing out a range of perceived shortcomings and phillips sweet
Speaker 1: Lea's work, including that she wasn't personal enough, she wasn't
Speaker 1: genuine enough, and she cared too little for other enslaved Africans.
Speaker 1: And the words of James Weldon Johnson, who was writing
Speaker 1: in the nine preface to the Book of American Negro Poetry,
Speaker 1: quote one looks in vain for some outburst or even
Speaker 1: complaint against the bondage of her people, for some agonizing
Speaker 1: cry about her native land. And two poems she refers
Speaker 1: definitely to Africa as her home. But in each instance
Speaker 1: there seems to be under the sentiment of the lines,
Speaker 1: a feeling of almost smug contentment at her own escape
Speaker 1: therefrom In the early to mid twentieth century, people started
Speaker 1: to write Philis Wheatlely off as a second rate imitator
Speaker 1: of Alexander Pope. This sort of criticism really escalated in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, especially within the Black arts movement, which
Speaker 1: saw Wheatly's work as not nearly political or radical enough.
Speaker 1: Writing in The New Yorker in two thousand three, Dr
Speaker 1: Henry Lewis Gates Jr. Described it this way, quote too
Speaker 1: black to be taken seriously by white critics in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, Wheatley was now considered too white to interest
Speaker 1: black critics critics in the twentie A lot of this
Speaker 1: criticism cites Wheatly's poem on being Brought from Africa to America,
Speaker 1: and the first stanza of this poem reads, twas mercy
Speaker 1: brought me from my pagan land, taught my benighted soul
Speaker 1: to understand that there's a God and there's savior too.
Speaker 1: Once I redemption neither sought nor new so. In other words,
Speaker 1: she's describing being brought from Africa to America as a
Speaker 1: slave as something merciful because otherwise she wouldn't have learned
Speaker 1: about the existence of God and sought redemption. But the
Speaker 1: poem's second stanza goes on to condemn racism and hypocrisy
Speaker 1: among Christian slave owners, admonishing them to remember that, to
Speaker 1: use her word, negroes are also human souls who are
Speaker 1: able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Here is the
Speaker 1: second half of that poem. Some view are sable race
Speaker 1: with scornful eye. Their color is a diabolic dye. Remember, Christians,
Speaker 1: negroes black as cane may be refined and joined the
Speaker 1: angelic train. It's also worth noting that this poem, which
Speaker 1: has been used to just write phil as sweetly off completely,
Speaker 1: was written when she was about fourteen years old, and
Speaker 1: if she had lived longer, it would have been thought
Speaker 1: of as part of her juvenile and not as part
Speaker 1: of her mature body of work, and criticisms that she
Speaker 1: never condemned slavery are simply not accurate. Here's a stanza
Speaker 1: from to the right Honorable William Earl of Dartmouth, which
Speaker 1: we were referenced earlier, quote, should you, my lord, while
Speaker 1: you peruse my song wonder from whence my love of
Speaker 1: freedom sprung whence flow these wishes for the common good?
Speaker 1: By feeling hearts alone best understood, I young in life,
Speaker 1: by seeming cruel fate was snatched from Africa's fancied happy seat.
Speaker 1: What pangs excruciating must molest, what sorrows labor in my
Speaker 1: parents breast stealed? Was that soul? And by no misery
Speaker 1: moved that from a father seized his babe beloved. Such
Speaker 1: such my case? And can I then but pray others
Speaker 1: may never feel tyrannic sway? And that same book introduction
Speaker 1: James Weldon Johnson dismissed that poem as unimpassioned. In the
Speaker 1: last few decades, critics and scholars have started to take
Speaker 1: a closer look at Wheatley's actual writing, which had previously
Speaker 1: been overshadowed by her biography and her general noteworthiness as
Speaker 1: an enslaved black poet during the colonial era. Some of
Speaker 1: this traces possible African influences in her work. Several literary critics,
Speaker 1: including John C. Shields and Mary Catherine Loving, also interpreted
Speaker 1: her work as a lot more subversive than previous criticism
Speaker 1: had given it credit for. So it's hard to draw
Speaker 1: comparisons to specific African cultures because Africa is not a monolith,
Speaker 1: and we don't know exactly where philis Wheatly was from
Speaker 1: or what who were people in Africa would have been,
Speaker 1: but several historians have noted that multiple West African people's
Speaker 1: used funeral elegies as a central element of community life,
Speaker 1: with these songs most often being performed by young women.
Speaker 1: Nearly a third of wheatly surviving poems are elegies, and
Speaker 1: structurally they have more in common with African elegies than
Speaker 1: with elegaic poems from when she was living written in Europe.
Speaker 1: Another potential African influence on Wheatley's work is in its imagery.
Speaker 1: Margaretta Matilda O'Dell wrote the first biography, which was published
Speaker 1: with an addition of her poems in eighteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: and in the introduction to that biography, O'Dell claimed, quote,
Speaker 1: she does not seem to have preserved any remembrance of
Speaker 1: the place of her nativity or of her parents, accepting
Speaker 1: the simple circumstance that her mother poured out water before
Speaker 1: the sun at his rising, in reference no doubt to
Speaker 1: an ancient African custom. The rising sun is frequently a
Speaker 1: repeated theme in Wheatley's poetry, as well as plays on
Speaker 1: the words involving son as in the Male Child and
Speaker 1: son as in the bright blazing Object in the sky.
Speaker 1: And then there's the fact that Wheatley was, based on
Speaker 1: everything we know of her, obviously very smart, her making
Speaker 1: connections in London and traveling there after the Somerset case
Speaker 1: was decided to suggest that she was also politically very savvy.
Speaker 1: She also removed a lot of explicitly pro patriot poems
Speaker 1: from that collection of poetry before having it printed in London,
Speaker 1: and she replaced them with ones that would be more
Speaker 1: acceptable to a more loyalist audience. So it's really reasonable
Speaker 1: to conclude that she understood how she was being constrained
Speaker 1: by the world that she was living in, and she
Speaker 1: was crafting poems to be well received within that world.
Speaker 1: So instead of writing poems explicitly about the evils of slavery,
Speaker 1: she wrote poems about loving liberty and freedom, which within
Speaker 1: her overwhelmingly white audience and the colonies, would be read
Speaker 1: as patriotism instead of as criticism. Do you have some
Speaker 1: listener mailments? Tracy? What I have is actually a link
Speaker 1: somebody shared on our Facebook page. UM the the listener
Speaker 1: is Angel, who posted something on our Facebook wall, and
Speaker 1: the note just said check this out, So you don't
Speaker 1: even have to write a lot for us to read
Speaker 1: your message on the air. So what she wanted us
Speaker 1: to check out was a post from Cincinnati Museum Center
Speaker 1: which answered some of the questions that we had in
Speaker 1: our episode about the Last Carolina parakeet about whether Incas,
Speaker 1: who was the last Carolina parakeet, had been preserved through
Speaker 1: taxidermy after his death or not. And so the answer,
Speaker 1: according to this article that Angel shared with us is maybe. Um.
Speaker 1: According to this blog post at the Cincinnati Museum Center,
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Zoo announced that Incas would be shipped to
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian, just like Martha had been a few years before.
Speaker 1: Martha was the last Passenger pigeon, but Incas is not
Speaker 1: currently in the Smithsonian's collection. There are, however, two unlabeled
Speaker 1: Carolina parakeets in the Cincinnati Museum Center collection, and one
Speaker 1: of them could be Incas, but it's really unclear. We
Speaker 1: just do not know. Um. That explains though, why I
Speaker 1: could not confirm that fact before we recorded the episode,
Speaker 1: because it's a little bit of a mystery. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us about this or another podcast,
Speaker 1: or at history podcasts at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash missed
Speaker 1: in History and on Twitter at miss in History. Our
Speaker 1: Instagram and our Pinterest are also under the name missed
Speaker 1: in History. You can come to our website, which is
Speaker 1: missed in history dot com, and you will find show
Speaker 1: notes for all of the episodes that Holly and I
Speaker 1: have done together. Those list all the sources that we
Speaker 1: used in the episode. You'll find a searchable archive of
Speaker 1: every episode that we have ever done. Uh and if
Speaker 1: you would like to subscribe to our show if you
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Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff
Speaker 1: works dot com. M