“I HAVE BEEN IN A VERY POOR STATE OF HEALTH ALL THE PAST WINTER AND SPRING AND NOW RESIDE THE COUNTRY FOR THE BENEFIT OF ITS MORE WHOLESOME AIR. WHILE MY OUTWARD MAN LANGUISHES UNDER WEAKNESS AND PAIN, MAY THE INWARD BE REFRESHED AND STRENGTHENED MORE ABOUNDANTLY BY HIM WHO DECLARED FROM HEAVEN THAT HIS STRENGTH WAS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS!”
Phillis Wheatley began writing letters at the age of 12.
“As to her writing, her own curiousity led her to it,” her master John Wheatley wrote. “She learned in so short a time that in the year 1765, she wrote a letter to the Reverend Mr. Occom, the Indian Minister, while in England.”
The Reverend Samson Occom, a frequent visitor to the Wheatley home, was an American Mohican Indian who converted to Christianity. Phillis wrote one of her first letters to him while he traveled in England.
This letter no longer exists—we know of it only because of John Wheatley’s reference. Phillis wrote another letter to Rev. Occum on February 11, 1774 that was later printed in the Connecticut Gazette. It was her most forceful condemnation of slavery known to have survived.
The person who Phillis wrote to most often was a woman named Obour Tanner, a slave like Phillis, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. The Massachusetts Historical Society is in possession of seven letters that Phillis wrote to her friend Obour.
Scholars knew of 19 letters that Phillis wrote until the 2005 discovery of an eighth letter she wrote to Obour Tanner.
"It was not previously known to exist and has never been published," said Jeremy Markowitz, an Americana specialist at Swann, a New York auction house where the letter was sold for over $253,000. It was the highest amount ever paid for a letter written by an African American, and possibly the highest price ever for a letter written by a woman.
Historians are confident the letter is genuine. "We not only had it authenticated by a Wheatley scholar, but also analyzed the handwriting, the paper and the ink," Mr. Markowitz said. "You can tell a period letter by the way the ink lies on the paper, the fluid style and the paper itself."
Obour Tanner was several years older than Phillis. We know that she was born in Africa and, like Phillis, she could read and write. They kept in touch throughout Phillis’ adult life. Their letters demonstrate a sisterly bond of friendship and a deep affection for each other. Both women were deeply religious Christians. We know that Phillis visited Obour on occasion.
Wheatley scholar John Shields hypothesizes that “these two women both arrived in Boston on the same slaver, ‘The Phillis’ and that Obour may well have kept alive the younger and weaker Phillis during the horrific Middle Passage.”
On May 19, 1772, Phillis wrote to Obour:
“I rec’d your favour of February 6th for which I give you my sincere thanks. I greatly rejoice with you in that realizing view and I hope experience, of the Saving Change which you so emphatically describe. Happy were it for us if we could arrive to that evangelical repentance and true holiness of heart which you mention. Inexpressibly happy should we be could we have a due sense of the beauty and excellence of the Crucified Savior…Let us rejoice in and adore the wonders of God’s infinite Love…Here, the knowledge of the true God and eternal life are made manifest.”
In these intimate letters we learn how serious Phillis’ physical problems were.
“I have been in a very poor state of health all the past winter and spring and now reside in the country for the benefit of its more wholesome air,” she wrote to Obour on July 19, 1772. “While my outward man languishes under weakness and pain, may the inward be refreshed and strengthened more abundantly by him who declared from heaven that his strength was made perfect in weakness!”
On October 30, 1773, she told Obour that “I am at present indisposed by a cold and since my arrival have been visited by the asthma.”
On March 21, 1774, Phillis wrote that “I have been unwell the great part of the winter but am much better as the spring approaches.”
For all her classical verbal ability and Christian sensibilities, Phillis and Obour were not above sharing personal suggestions that we would recognize as “girltalk.”
“The young man by whom this is handed you seems to me to be a very clever man,” Phillis wrote to Obour, “knows you very well and is very complaisant and agreeable.”
When Phillis mistress, Susannah Wheatley died, Phillis was devastated. Susannah Wheatley was her greatest supporter and was directly responsible for seeing that Phillis' poetry found its way to print. Phillis confided her deep sorrow to her friend on March 21, 1774.
“I have lately met with a great trial in the death of my mistress. Let us imagine the loss of a parent, sister or brother, the tenderness of all these were united in her. I was a poor little outcaste and a stranger when she took me in—not only into her house but I presently became a sharer in her most tender affections. I was treated by her more like her child than her servant. No opportunity was left unimproved of bringing me the best of advice, but in terms how tender!
The final letter we know of that Phillis wrote to her friend was dated May 29th, 1778.
“I am exceedingly glad to hear from you…The vast variety of scenes that have passed before us these three years past will to a reasonable mind serve to convince us of the uncertain duration of all things Temporal and the proper result of such a consideration is an ardent desire for a state and enjoyments which are most suitable to the immortal mind..
“You will do me a great favour if you write me by every opportunity…I am, most affectionately, my dear Obour, your sincere friend, Phillis Wheatley.”
The recently discovered letter from Phillis to Obour was dated “Feby 14, 1776.”
Dear Obour,
I rec.d your kind Letter of the 17th ultimo by Cato Coggeshall; had not the opportunity to see him. I doubt not that your present situation is extremely unhappy; nor that you with wonder exclaim on the proceedings of nations that are fav.d with the divine revelation of the Gospel. Even I a mere spectator am in anxious suspense concerning the fortune of this unnatural civil Contest.
Possibly the ambition & thirst of Dominion in some is design'd as the punishment of the national views of others, tho' it bears the appearance of greater Barbarity than that of the uncivilz'd part of mankind.
But Let us leave the Event to him whose wisdom alone can bring good out of Evil & he is infinitely superior to all the Craftiness of the enemies of this seemingly devoted Country. This is handed to you by Mr. Lingo, with whom I and Mr. Quamine I passed the last evening very agreeably.
Dutiful respects to Mr. Hopkins & family and believe me to be your affectionate,
P. Wheatley
Another of Philllis’ friends was a Boston slave named Scipio Moorhead. He was a talented artist but his only surviving work is the portrait of Phillis Wheatley that appears on the frontspiece of her book, POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL in 1773.
Among her poems in the book was this ode to S. M., a young African Painter.
TO S. M., A YOUNG AFRICAN PAINTER,
ON SEEING HIS WORKS
BY PHILLIS WHEATLEY, 1773
To show the lab'ring bosom's deep intent,
And thought in living characters to paint,
When first thy pencil did those beauties give,
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live,
How did those prospects give my soul delight,
A new creation rushing on my sight!
Still, wondrous youth! each noble path pursue,
On deathless glories fix thine ardent view:
Still may the painter's and the poet's fire,
To aid thy pencil and thy verse conspire!
And may the charms of each seraphic theme
Conduct thy footsteps to immortal fame!
High to the blissful wonders of the skies
Elate thy soul, and raise thy wishful eyes.
Thrice happy, when exalted to survey
That splendid city, crowned with endless day,
Whose twice six gates on radiant hinges ring:
Celestial Salem blooms in endless spring.
Calm and serene thy moments glide along,
And may the muse inspire each future song!
Still, with the sweets of contemplation blessed,
May peace with balmy wings your soul invest!
But when these shades of time are chased away,
And darkness ends in everlasting day,
On what seraphic pinions shall we move,
And view the landscapes in the realms above!
There shall thy tongue in heavenly murmurs flow,
And there my muse with heavenly transport glow;
No more to tell of Damon's tender sighs,
Or rising radiance of Aurora's eyes,
For nobler themes demand a nobler strain,
And purer language on the etherial plain.
Cease, gentle Muse! the solemn gloom of night
Now seals the fair creation from my sight.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Sunday, January 3rd 2010 at 12:34PM
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