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Wheatley, Phillis
(1753?-1784) American writer. Born in Africa, Phillis Wheatley was the first important African-American poet. At the age of 8, she was captured and sold to the Wheatley family in Massachusetts.
Early America Review
Magazine dedicated to colonial America provides an article discussing America's first African American poet.
Perspectives in American Literature
Literature reference guide offers a large collection of resources devoted to Wheatley. Find a biography poems a bibliography and essays.
About Phillis Wheatley - Slave Poet of Colonial America
"Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa (probably Senegal) about 1753 or 1754. When she was about eight years old, she was kidnapped and brought to Boston. There, in 1761, John Wheatley bought her for his wife, Susanna, as a personal servant. As was the custom of the time, she was given the Wheatley family's surname."
Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley became a Boston sensation when one of her poems was published as a broadside in 1770. Three years later, 39 of her poems were published in London as Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, the first book to be published by a black American.