THE TRIALS OF PHILLIS WHEATLEY: AMERICA’S FIRST BLACK POET (Part 4) (344 hits)

ON MAY 7, 1772, A TEENAGE GIRL SAT DOWN BEFORE A PANEL OF BOSTON’S MOST CELEBRATED CITIZENS. PHILLIS WHEATLEY, AN AFRICAN SLAVE BARELY NINETEEN YEARS OLD, FACED A BOARD OF EIGHTEEN MEN FOR A SERIOUS ROUND OF QUESTIONING.

By 1772, Phillis Wheatley had crafted so many poems, that her mistress Susanna Wheatley set out to collect Phillis’ work and publish her poems in a book. She took out advertisements in the Boston papers announcing a new book of 28 poems written by her slave. She offered to publish them if enough subscribers could be found. However, few Bostonians believed that an African slave possessed the ability to write poetry so the book was not published.

It was then that her Master John Wheatley arranged to assemble some of the finest minds in all colonial America to closely question the African adolescent about the poetry that she and her master and mistress claimed she had written by herself.

The panel was assembled to verify whether Phillis actually wrote the poems. “This circumstance is usually referred to as ‘The Wheatley Court’”, wrote scholar John Shields in 2008.


“The panel had been assembled to verify the authorship of her poems and to answer a much larger question,” according to Henry Louis Gates. “Was a Negro capable of producing literature?”


Her interrogators included the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, prominent clergymen, local politicians and merchants, a leading scientist and John Hancock who would later become the first man to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

One of the prominent men present at the inquest was Reverend Mather Byles, a Congregational Minister and Harvard Graduate who lived across the street from the Wheatley mansion. Reverend Byles owned one of the largest personal libraries in the colonies, over two thousand books. Scholars believe that he made his huge library available to young Phillis to further her education.
The men most likely quizzed her on topics a highly educated poet ought to know, testing her knowledge of Greek mythology, the Bible, and other classical poets.

“We have no transcript of the exchanges that occurred between Miss Wheatley and her eighteen examiners,” wrote Dr. Gates. “What we do know is that she passed with flying colors.”

After interrogating the poet, the tribunal of eighteen men agreed to sign the following testimonial:

“We whose names are underwritten do assure the world that the poems specified in the following page were (as we verily believe) written by PHILLIS, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few years since, brought an uncultivated barbarian from Africa, and has ever since been, and now is, under the disadvantage of serving as a slave in a Family in this Town…Signed, this seventh day of May, in the town of Boston, province of Massachusetts, in the year of our Lord, 1772.”

The panel concluded that she had, in fact, written the poems ascribed to her. Their signed statement appeared in the preface to her first book which was published in London in 1773. It was published in London because no Boston publisher would take it.

“And so, against the greatest odds,” wrote Professor Gates, “POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL, became the first book published by a person of African descent in the English language.”

It was only the fifth book published in English by a woman and it was the beginning of the African-American literary tradition.

ON VIRTUE
By Phillis Wheatley


O THOU bright jewel, in my aim I strive
To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare
Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.
I cease to wonder, and no more attempt
Thine height to explore, or fathom thy profound.
But O my soul, sink not into despair;
Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand
Would now embrace thee,--hovers o'er thine head.
Fain would the heaven-born soul with her converse,
Then seek, then court her for her promised bliss.
Auspicious queen! thine heavenly pinions spread,
And lead celestial Chastity along.
Lo! now her sacred retinue descends,
Arrayed in glory from the orbs above.
Attend me, Virtue, through my youthful years;
Oh, leave me not to the false joys of time,
But guide my steps to endless life and bliss.
Greatness, or Goodness, say what shall I call thee,
To give an higher appellation still:
Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay,
O thou, enthroned with cherubs in the realms of day.

Posted By: Richard Kigel
Tuesday, December 29th 2009 at 10:10AM
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