Phillis Wheatly

Phillis Wheatley was born in 1753 in Africa. Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped and sold at a slave auction at age seven to a prosperous Boston family who educated her and treated her as a family member. Rescued from an otherwise hopeless situation by the sympathies of the Wheatley family, Phillis learned English with remarkable speed, and, although she never attended a formal school, she also learned Greek and Latin. It is clear that the Christian compassion …

…of injustice found in any of her poems is in the line "Some view our sable race with scornful eye" - it would be almost a hundred years before another black writer would drop the mask of convention and write openly about the African-American experience. Phillis Wheatley received her freedom and married a free black man in 1778 but, despite her skills, was never able to support her family. Although she died in complete poverty in 1784.