I, YOUNG IN LIFE, BY SEEMING CRUEL FATE, WAS SNATCH’D FROM AFRIC’S FANCY’D HAPPY SEAT. WHAT PANGS EXCRUCIATING MUST MOLEST? WHAT SORROWS LABOUR IN MY PARENT’S BREAST?”
After her triumphant tour of London where she was toasted and celebrated for her new book of poetry, Phillis Wheatley returned to America on September 13, 1773. By October 18, she was a free woman. She received the first copies of her book to sell in January 1774.
By May 6, 1774, she was fully in the book selling business. “I have received in some of the last ships from London 300 more copies of my POEMS,” she wrote to Rev. Samuel Hopkins of Newport, Rhode Island. “Wish to dispose of them as soon as possible. If you know of any being wanted, I flatter myself you will be pleased to let me know.”
Professor John Shields, in his 2008 study of Wheatley and her poetry, explained the reasons for her new found popularity. “Two factors which advanced her international success in the 1770’s more than any others,” he wrote, “were, first that she was a black author and second, that she was female.”
Fifteen years before Phillis Wheatley faced the “Wheatley Court” challenging her legitimacy as a poet, there was another case of a white poet, Martha Brewster, one of only four American women before Wheatley to publish a book, who was compelled to prove her ability to write by publicly creating a verse from a psalm.
Phillis Wheatley confronted her status as a black woman, a slave and a poet head on. “Rather than disguise or deny these facts, she allowed a vivid and, we are told, accurate engraving of her likeness to serve as frontspiece to her 1773 POEMS,” Shields wrote. “She not only announced to the world her color but her s*x and in as bold a manner as was then possible.”
According to her first biographer Margaretta Oddell, who was a member of the Wheatley family, the portrait was “a striking representation.” She tells how a another Wheatley relative pointed to the picture over the fireplace (the original engraving of her portrait), saying: “See! Look at Phillis! Does she not seem as though she would speak to me!”
Phillis Wheatley left for England as an African slave. Shortly after she returned to the colonies she was a free woman with an international reputation.
As she returned home to Boston, the colonies had reached the boiling point in their resentments against England. Now a free woman, Phillis Wheatley was ready to embrace the American Revolution. For her, it was a fight for freedom—for the young nation and for her fellow African slaves.
She believed that the colonies struggle for freedom from Britain would lead to end of slavery in the former colonies. Now that she was free, she could express her anti-slavery views more forcefully than when she was enslaved.
In her 1773 poem TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE WILLLIAM, EARL OF DARMOUTH, Phillis Wheatley complained bitterly about the human costs of the slave trade.
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that son and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?”
Her strongest anti-slavery statement came in a letter to the Rev. Samson Occom, long a family friend and a Mohegan Indian Christian Minister. Phillis had the letter published in the Connecticut Gazette on March 11, 1774.
She wrote:
“For in every human breast God has implanted a principle, which we call Love of Freedom. It is impatient of oppression, and pants for deliverance; and by the leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same principle lives in us. 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."
In 1784, the year she died, Phillis published a masterful sixty-four-line poem in a pamphlet entitled LIBERTY AND PEACE, which hailed America as "Columbia" victorious over "Britannia Law." She was proud of her nation's intense struggle for freedom. To her, it was proof of the new nation’s spiritual greatness.
LIBERTY AND PEACE
By PHILLIS WHEATLEY
LO! Freedom comes. Th’ prescient Muse foretold,
All Eyes th’accomplish’d Prophecy behold:
Her Port describ’d, “She moves divinely fair, “
Olive and Laurel bind her golden Hair.”
She, the bright Progeny of Heaven, descends,
And every Grace her sovereign Step attends;
For now kind Heaven, indulgent to our Prayer,
In smiling Peace resolves the Din of War.
Fix’d in Columbia her illustrious Line,
And bids in thee her future Councils shine.
To every Realm her Portals open’d wide,
Receives from each the full commercial Tide.
Each Art and Science now with rising Charms
Th’ expanding Heart with Emulation warms.
E’en great Britannia sees with dread Surprize,
And from the dazzling Splendors turns her Eyes!
Britain, whose Navies swept th’ Atlantic o’er,
And Thunder sent to every distant Shore;
E’en thou, in Manners cruel as thou art,
The Sword resign’d, resume the friendly Part!
For Galia’s Power espous’d Columbia’s Cause,
And new-born Rome shall give Britannia Law,
Nor unremember’d in the grateful Strain,
Shall princely Louis’ friendly Deeds remain;
The generous Prince th’ impending Vengeance eye’s,
ees the fierce Wrong, and to the rescue flies.
Perish that Thirst of boundless Power,
that drew On Albion’s Head the Curse to Tyrants due.
But thou appeas’d submit to Heaven’s decree,
That bids this Realm of Freedom rival thee!
Now sheathe the Sword that bade the Brave attone
With guiltless Blood for Madness not their own.
Sent from th’ Enjoyment of their native Shore
Ill-fated- never to behold her more!
From every Kingdom on Europa’s Coast Throng’d various Troops,
their Glory, Strength and Boast.
With heart-felt pity fair Hibernia saw
Columbia menac’d by the Tyrant’s Law:
On hostile Fields fraternal Arms engage,
And mutual Deaths, all dealt with mutual Rage:
The Muse’s Ear hears mother Earth deplore
Her ample Surface smoake with kindred Gore:
The hostile Field destroys the social Ties,
And every-lasting Slumber seals their Eyes.
Columbia mourns, the haughty Foes deride,
Her Treasures plunder’d, and her Towns destroy’d:
Witness how Charlestown’s curling Smoaks arise,
In sable Columns to the clouded Skies!
The ample Dome, high-wrought with curious Toil,
In one sad Hour the savage Troops despoil.
Descending Peace and Power of War confounds;
from every Tongue celestial Peace resounds:
As for the East th’ illustrious King of Day,
With rising Radiance drives the Shades away,
So Freedom comes array’d with Charms divine,
And in her Train Commerce and Plenty shine.
Britannia owns her Independent Reign,
Hibernia, Scotia, and the Realms of Spain;
And great Germania’s ample Coast admires
The generous Spirit that Columbia fires.
Auspicious Heaven shall fill with fav’ring Gales,
Where e’er Columbia spreads her swelling Sails:
To every Realm shall Peace her Charms display,
And Heavenly Freedom spread her golden Ray.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Tuesday, January 5th 2010 at 10:20PM
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