Phillis Wheatley was the first African American poet and first African-American woman to publish her writing. Born in Gambia, Senegal, she was sold into slavery at age 8 and transported to North America. She was purchased by the Wheatley family of Boston, who taught her to read and write, and encouraged her poetry when they saw her talent.
Her works include:
Books
-Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and Slave (Boston: Geo. W. Light, 1834), also by Margaretta Matilda Odell
-Revolutionary poet
Poems
"An Address to the Atheist" and "An Address to the Deist," 1767
"To the King's Most Excellent Majesty" 1768
"Atheism," July 1769
"An Elegaic Poem On the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned Mr. George Whitefield," 1771
"A Poem of the Death of Charles Eliot ...," 1 September 1772
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773; reprinted 1802)
"To His Honor the Lieutenant Governor on the death of his Lady," 24 March 1773
"An Elegy, To Miss Mary Moorhead, On the Death of her Father, The Rev. Mr. John Moorhead," 1773
"An Elegy, Sacred to the Memory of the Great Divine, the Reverend and the Learned Dr. Samuel Cooper," 1784
"Liberty and Peace, A Poem" 1784
It is extremely difficult to speak on Black women of influence without mentioning Phillis Wheatley. With the 1774 publication of Wheatley's book Poems on Various Subjects, she "became the most famous African on the face of the earth." Critics consider her work fundamental to the genre of African American literature. She is honored as the first African American woman to publish a book and the first to make a living from her writing.
