“WHEATLEY SUDDENLY HAD A WIDE READERSHIP ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC,” WROTE HENRY LOUIS GATES. “IT MADE HER THE TONI MORRISON OF HER TIME.”
In 1770, when Phillis was seventeen, the revered Reverend George Whitfield, a popular English preacher, passed away. He was beloved by her mistress Susanna Wheatley. The Reverend Whitefield was in Boston a week before his untimely death.
“It is probable that Whitefield was offered accommodations in the Wheatley mansion when visiting Boston,” wrote Historian John Shields. “Phillis and Whitefield may well have met and talked socially while under the same roof. In any case, it is most probable that Wheatley had heard Whitefield preach on at least two occasions.”
Within weeks of his death, this poem appeared in four different publications in Boston and at least twelve in New York, Philadelphia and Newport, Rhode Island. It was published in London in 1771.
“Wheatley suddenly had a wide readership on both sides of the Atlantic,” wrote Henry Louis Gates. “It made her the Toni Morrison of her time.”
After 1765, when Britain passed the Stamp Act, the city of Boston became a tinderbox. The law required citizens to buy a stamp for almost anything written on paper, newspapers, public documents, wills, deeds, even playing cards. The colonists were outraged. Why should they pay tax to Britain when they had no one to represent them in the British Parliament?
By 1770, Britain passed more tax laws and sent more soliders to the colonies. Bostonians were angry at the red-uniformed British troops and attacked them and called them names.
ON March 5, 1770, a group of Bostonians surrounded some redcoats, throwing rocks and shouting insults. The soldiers fired on the crowd. The first man killed was Crispus Attucks, a black man, now remembered as the first martyr of the American Revolution.
The Wheatley mansion, located on the corner of King Street in Boston, was down the street from where the “Boston Massacre” took place.
Seventeen year old Phillis was moved by the valiant martyrdom of the African-American Crispus Attucks and the other brave men who fell before the British hat day.
On March 12, 1770, Wheatley's poem ON THE AFFRAY IN KING STREET appeared unsigned in the Boston Evening Post.
With Fire enwrapt, surcharg'd with sudden Death,
Lo, the pois'd Tube convolves its fatal breath!
The flying Ball with heaven-directed Force,
Rids the Spirit of the fallen corse.
Well sated Shades! let no unwomanly Tear
From Pity's Eye, disdain in your honour'd Bier;
Lost to their View, surviving Friends may mourn,
Yet on thy Pile shall Flames celestial burn;
Long as in Freedom's Cause the wise contend,
Dear to your unity shall Fame extend;
While to the World, the letter'd Stone shall tell,
How Caldwell, Attucks, Gray, and Mav'rick fell.
ON THE DEATH OF THE REV'D MR. GEORGE
WHITEFIELD.--1770
HAIL, happy saint! on thine immortal throne,
Possest of glory, life, and bliss unknown;
We hear no more the music of thy tongue;
Thy wonted auditories cease to throng.
Thy sermons in unequalled accents flowed,
And ev'ry bosom with devotion glowed;
Thou didst, in strains of eloquence refined,
Inflame the heart, and captivate the mind.
Unhappy, we the setting sun deplore,
So glorious once, but ah! it shines no more.
Behold the prophet in his towering flight!
He leaves the earth for heaven's unmeasured height,
And worlds unknown receive him from our sight.
There Whitefield wings with rapid course his way,
And sails to Zion through vast seas of day.
Thy prayers, great saint, and thine incessant cries,
Have pierced the bosom of they native skies.
Thou, moon, hast seen, and all the stars of light,
How he has wrestled with his God by night.
He prayed that grace in ev'ry heart might dwell;
He longed to see America excel;
He charged its youth that ev'ry grace divine
Should with full lustre in their conduct shine.
That Saviour, which his soul did first receive,
The greatest gift that ev'n a God can give,
He freely offered to the num'rous throng,
That on his lips with list'ning pleasure hung.
"Take him, ye wretched, for your only good,
"Take him, ye starving sinners, for your food;
"Ye thirsty, come to this life-giving stream,
"Ye preachers, take him for your joyful theme;
"Take him, my dear Americans, he said,
"Be your complaints on his kind bosom laid:
"Take him, ye Africans, he longs for you;
"Impartial Saviour is his title due:
"Washed in the fountain of redeeming blood,
"You shall be sons, and kings, and priests to God."
Great Countess,* we Americans revere
Thy name, and mingle in thy grief sincere;
New England deeply feels, the orphans mourn,
Their more than father will no more return.
But though arrested by the hand of death,
Whitefield no more exerts his lab'ring breath,
Yet let us view him in the eternal skies,
Let ev'ry heart to this bright vision rise;
While the tomb, safe, retains its sacred trust,
Till life divine re-animates the dust.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Monday, December 28th 2009 at 3:05PM
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