A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Wheatley, Phillis
WHEATLEY, PHILLIS,
Was brought from Africa, to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1761, when she was six years old, and sold in the slave-market, to Mrs. John Wheatley, wife of a merchant of that city. This lady, perceiving her natural abilities, had her carefully educated, and she acquired a thorough knowledge of the English and Latin languages. She wrote verses with great ease and fluency, frequently rising in the night to put down any thought that had occurred to her. In 1772, she accompanied a son of Mr. Wheatley to this country, for her health, and received a great deal of attention from the people in the higher ranks of life. Her poems were published in London, 1773, while she was in that city. She was then nineteen years of age. The volume was dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon; and in the preface are the names of the governor of Massachusetts, and several other eminent gentlemen, bearing testimony to their belief of her having been the genuine writer. Mr. Sparks, who gives these particulars in his "Life and Writings of George Washington," observes: "In whatever order of merit these poems may be ranked, it cannot be doubted that they exhibit the most favourable evidence on record, of the capacity of the African intellect for improvement. The classic allusions are numerous, and imply a wide compass of reading, a correct judgment, good taste, and a tenaceous memory. Her deportment is represented to have been gentle and unpretending, her temper amiable, her feelings refined, and her religious impressions strong and constant."
After her return, Phillis married a coloured man, named Peters, who proved unworthy of her, and made the rest of her life very unhappy. She died at Boston, in great poverty, in 1784, leaving three children. She was but thirty>one years old at the time of her decease. An edition of her poems was published in 1778, and another, with a biography of her, in 1835. Besides these poems, she wrote many which were never published; and one of these, addressed and sent to General Washington, soon after he took command of the American army, gives her a more enduring fame than all her printed pieces.