A Principle which we call Love of Freedom

In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance.

The quote is from a letter dated February 11, 1774, by Phillis Wheatley, recognized as the first poet of African descent published in the New World. At the time she wrote this letter, Phillis was about 20 years old, having been brought to the Massachusetts Colony without her permission when she was a young girl. Enslaved by the Wheatley family, her true name was forgotten and she was instead named for the slave ship which brought her from her native Africa. Her enslavers taught her to read and write and particularly helped develop her religious life.

Phillis was, by then, already a published poet and the novelty of an African poet made her somewhat popular. She was no less enslaved, however, and her letter expresses the tension against the system of slavery as the colonists were beginning to look for a revolution to protect their freedom. She saw the hypocrisy in the situation, and compared her fellow slaves to the Biblical Egyptian slaves, admitting that they shared the same desire for freedom:

God grant Deliverance in his own Way and Time, and get him honour upon all those whose Avarice impels them to countenance and help forward the Calamities of their fellow Creatures. This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite, How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the exercise of oppressive power over others agree I humbly think it does not require the penetration of a Philosopher to determine.

Some of her poems include subversive cries against slavery, but this letter is explicit. She is "impatient" and "pants" for freedom, and notes how obvious the problem should be. It was published in several newspapers as early as a month later. It would not be another four years before she was granted her freedom.

Death of Phillis Wheatley: cease my song

She was born free and given a name lost to history but was renamed Phillis Wheatley when she was brought to the New World and enslaved. Her poetry helped her earn her own freedom, and it was as a free woman that she died on December 5, 1784. She was approximately 31 years old. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Boston's Copps Hill Burial Ground.

Though the first published African poet in the New World known to history, she was impoverished in her final years. After being granted her freedom, she remained with the Wheatley family for several years (during this period, she knew important men like Benjamin Franklin and corresponded with George Washington). She married shortly before the United States declared their independence.

Wheatley's final year proved difficult. She turned to part-time duties as a domestic servant and a teacher. The family's financial situation was dire, nevertheless, and her husband John Peters was imprisoned for debt. She planned to publish another book of poems in the hope that she would receive financial support from sponsors (as had been the case with previous books).

Through her work, Wheatley shows herself as a deeply religious and optimistic woman who adores nature. Though she occasionally seems accepting of her fate, recent critics have found more subversive questions about freedom and humanity. She can be a difficult poet to read and understand, but among her shorter works is "Hymn to the Evening":

     Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main,
The pealing thunder shook the heavenly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.

     Through all the heavens what beauteous dyes are spread,
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev'ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!

     Filled with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers soothe each weary mind,
At morn to wake, more heavenly, more refined;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night's leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease my song, till fair Aurora rise.

Washington and Wheatley: a parcel of papers

From his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, General George Washington wrote to his one-time aide-de-camp Joseph Reed on February 10, 1776:

I recollect nothing else worth giving you the trouble of, unless you can be amused by reading a letter and poem addressed to me by Miss Phillis Wheatley. In searching over a parcel of papers the other day, in order to destroy such as were useless, I brought it to light again. At first, with a view of doing justice to her poetical genius, I had a great mind to publish the poem; but not knowing whether it might not be considered rather as a mark of my own vanity than a compliment to her, I laid it aside till I came across it again in the manner just mentioned.

Phillis Wheatley, a former enslaved woman, had written the slave-owning Washington a letter and poem back in October 1775. Her published poems had caused a sensation, particularly in England, in part due to some skepticism that she was capable of writing so well. Her poem "To His Excellency General Washington" offered encouragement in his heaven-blessed endeavors:

Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev'ry action let the goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! be thine.

Washington took some time considering how to respond to Wheatley. He finally wrote her a letter at the end of February, thanking her for the poem and inviting her to visit him at headquarters. No evidence exists that she took him up on the offer. That same home which Washington used as his headquarters continued its connection to poetry; decades later, it became the home of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is now open to the public.

*Recommended reading: Phillis Wheatley, Complete Writings (Penguin Classics, 2001)

Wheatley: I have taken the freedom

From his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, George Washington received a letter from a 20-something named Phillis Wheatley, dated October 26, 1775. "Sir, she wrote, "I have taken the freedom to address your Excellency in the enclosed poem... Your being appointed by the Grand Continental Congress to be Generalissimo of the armies of North America, together with the fame of your virtues, excite sensations not easy to suppress." Here is the poem, "To His Excellency General Washington":

...Muse! bow propitious while my pen relates
How pour her armies through a thousand gates,
As when Eolus heaven’s fair face deforms,
Enwrapp'd in tempest and a night of storms;
Astonish'd ocean feels the wild uproar,
The refluent surges beat the sounding shore;
Or thick as leaves in Autumn's golden reign,
Such, and so many, moves the warrior’s train.
In bright array they seek the work of war,
Where high unfurl’d the ensign waves in air.
Shall I to Washington their praise recite?
Enough thou know'st them in the fields of fight.
Thee, first in peace and honours,—we demand
The grace and glory of thy martial band.
Fam'd for thy valour, for thy virtues more,
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!

One century scarce perform'd its destined round,
When Gallic powers Columbia's fury found;
And so may you, whoever dares disgrace
The land of freedom’s heaven-defended race!
Fix'd are the eyes of nations on the scales,
For in their hopes Columbia's arm prevails.
Anon Britannia droops the pensive head,
While round increase the rising hills of dead.
Ah! cruel blindness to Columbia's state!
Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late.

Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev'ry action let the goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! be thine.

He did not respond for several months. Wheatley was a published poet but also a former slave. Washington, a Virginian plantation owner, must have hesitated at least in part because of a question of decorum. How does a slave-owner address a freed slave? Wheatley made the letter even more loaded by using the term, "I have taken the freedom."

But, Washington did, in fact, respond (eventually). "If you should ever come to Cambridge," he wrote, "...I shall be happy to see a person so favoured by the Muses." Though there is no evidence that "Miss Phillis" (as she was addressed by Washington) ever took him up on his offer, it is certainly impressive that the offer was made at all.

Wheatley says farewell to America

Phillis Wheatley wrote the poem "Farewell to America" on May 7, 1773, addressed to her master Mrs. Susanna Wheatley. Susanna had made sure the young slave they purchased in 1763 was taught to read and write. Soon, Phillis (named after the slave ship that brought her to Boston) was writing poetry.

Phillis accompanied her master Mr. Wheatley to London in 1773; there she published her first collection of poems after finding a number of prominent white males to offer their names in support of the idea that an enslaved young black woman was capable of writing poetry. That background may make the poem she wrote right before she left somewhat more poignant (I have removed the numbers above each stanza):

Adieu, New-England's smiling meads,
Adieu, th' flow'ry plain:
I leave thine op'ning charms, O spring,
And tempt the roaring main.

In vain for me the flow'rets rise,
And boast their gaudy pride,
While here beneath the northern skies
I mourn for health deny'd.

Celestial maid of rosy hue,
Oh let me feel thy reign!
I languish till thy face I view,
Thy vanish'd joys regain.

Susannah mourns, nor can I bear
To see the crystal shower
Or mark the tender falling tear
At sad departure's hour;

Not regarding can I see
Her soul with grief opprest
But let no sighs, no groans for me
Steal from her pensive breast.

In vain the feather'd warblers sing
In vain the garden blooms
And on the bosom of the spring
Breathes out her sweet perfumes.

While for Britannia's distant shore
We weep the liquid plain,
And with astonish'd eyes explore
The wide-extended main.

Lo! Health appears! celestial dame!
Complacent and serene,
With Hebe's mantle oe'r her frame,
With soul-delighting mien.

To mark the vale where London lies
With misty vapors crown'd
Which cloud Aurora's thousand dyes,
And veil her charms around.

Why, Phoebus, moves thy car so slow?
So slow thy rising ray?
Give us the famous town to view,
Thou glorious King of day!

For thee, Britannia, I resign
New-England's smiling fields;
To view again her charms divine,
What joy the prospect yields!

But thou! Temptation hence away,
With all thy fatal train,
Nor once seduce my soul away,
By thine enchanting strain.

Thrice happy they, whose heavenly shield
Secures their souls from harm,
And fell Temptation on the field
Of all its pow'r disarms.

Phillis Wheatley and the first martyr of the American Revolution

The Boston Massacre was one of several events that eventually pushed American colonists into the Revolutionary War with their mother country of England. It took place on March 5, 1770. Soon after, an early poet described the incident; unfortunately Phillis Wheatley's poem, "On the Affray on King Street, on the Evening of the 5th of March 1770" was presumed lost for centuries.

Phillis* might have had a different perspective on what the war for American freedom meant. She was born in Africa and, nine years before the massacre, was taken from her home and forced into slavery. She was seven years old. Her original name was lost (or, perhaps, purposely forgotten) by the time she landed in Boston. Purchased by the Wheatley family, they named her after the boat upon which she sailed, the Phillis.

Phillis was educated, despite her status as property, and soon she began writing poetry, often with religious overtones. Her first book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773 (the title page was kind enough to list her as a "negro servant"). She is today considered the first black poet in America and some have called her the mother of African-American literature. Her book proved popular, and her owners granted her freedom as a result.

When the Boston Massacre occurred, Phillis was living only a few blocks away. Five were killed that day, including a black man named Crispus Attucks. Some have claimed that Attucks was the first martyr of the American Revolution; Phillis Wheatley said otherwise. In her poem, "On the Death of Mr. Snider Murder'd by Richardson," she gives her own account of the first martyr — an 11-year old boy named Christopher Snider (or Seider), killed two weeks before the Massacre:

In heavens eternal court it was decreed
Thou the first martyr for the common good
Long hid before, a vile infernal here
Prevents Achilles in his mid career
Where'er this fury darts his Pois'nous breath
All are endanger'd to the shafts of death
The generous Sires beheld the fatal wound
Saw their young champion gasping on the ground
They rais'd him up but to each present ear
What martial glories did his tongue declare
The wretch appal'd no longer can despise
But from the Striking victim turns his eyes—
When this young martial genius did appear
The Tory chief no longer could forbear.
Ripe for destruction, see the wretches doom
He waits the curses of the age to come
In vain he flies, by Justice Swiftly chaced
With unexpected infamy disgraced
By Richardson for ever banish'd here
The grand Usurpers bravely vaunted Heir.
We bring the body from the watry bower
To lodge it where it shall remove no more
Snider behold with what Majestic Love
The Illustrious retinue begins to move
With Secret rage fair freedom's foes beneath
See in thy corse ev'n Majesty in Death.

*I choose to call her by this name based on precedent set by several scholars of African-American literature, particularly Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who has often tried to drive up interest in her. The image is from her book; it is considered the only depiction of her taken from life.