Tales from the past: America's first black author

 

 Theresa Williams Hudson  She was called Phillis, because that was the name of the ship that brought her, and Wheatley, which was the name of the merchant who bought her. She was born in Senegal.

In Boston, the slave traders put her up for sale: “She's 7 years old! She will be a good mare!”

She was felt, naked, by many hands.

At thirteen, she was already writing poems in a language that was not her own. No one believed that she was the author. At the age of twenty, Phillis was questioned by a court of eighteen enlightened men in robes and wigs.

She had to recite passages from Virgil and Milton and some verses from the Bible, and she also had to vow that the poems she had composed were not copied. From a chair, she underwent her lengthy examination, until the court approved her: she was a woman, she was Black, she was enslaved, but she was a poet.

Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American writer to publish a book in the United States.

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