Phillis Wheatley, a slave from Gambia, was the first Black poet in America to publish numerous books and poems during the mid to late 1700s. She was not treated as badly as other slaves brought from Africa since her owners, the Wheatleys, brought education into her world, (Andrew Spacey, Owlcation.com). Writings from the Latin, Greek and the Bible helped her learn to read and write, as her popular poems were influenced by famous poets, such as John Milton, Thomas Gray and Alexander Pope, (Jennifer Benka, Poets.Org). After releasing various poems, being acknowledged by George Washington and receiving praise throughout the Colonies and England, her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” elicited mixed emotions about slavery. Slavery, …show more content…
unfortunately, would continue to be big revenue, but also a problem as the United States expanded. Phillis Wheatley wrote “On Being Brought from Africa to America” in 1768 which delved deeply into the mind of a young African slave protagonist who tries to come to terms with her displacement from Africa to the Colonies, (Unknown author, enotes.com).
It appears as if Phillis wrote this poem from her own experience, describing Boston as substantially different from Gambia. In this religious/race poem, the exact timeframe is unknown; however, it was obviously written when the slave trade was rampant in the colonies, during the 1700s and around the time of the American Revolution. There are two possible places the poem could have taken place: either on the slave ships heading to the new land or while they were already with their owners in the colonies. The Colonies and Caribbean economies heavily relied on the Atlantic Slave Trade which brought the supply of labour for the production of crops, making goods and clothing to sell to their particular empires in Europe, (Unknown author, Sahistory.org). When the economy soared around the world, slaves arrived in numbers. Subsequently, many cultures had not seen owning another human being to be inhumane. Phillis Wheatley’s poem pondered the protagonist’s situation rather than to serve as a …show more content…
statement. The first couplet within “On Being Brought From Africa To America” set the tone for the poem - “Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand” by stating that it was a blessing that she was free from the Pagan land, which was also known as Africa.
The narrator believed, in an optimistic mood, that deep down in her ignorance, dark heart, it was a good idea to come to America. Strangely, the narrator does not feel bitter or resentful toward the colonizers as she is being shipped off into the unknown. The second couplet - “That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour, too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew” implied that God’s compassion brought her out of Africa and that the virtues of Christianity provided comfort while on the slave ship as they traveled to America. The narrator predicts hardships will be encountered and horrific injustices suffered, but there will be a positive end to all means. Unfortunately, many slaves did not fully understand what was to become, and misguidedly believed they would have more “freedom” when the colonizers arrive. Nonetheless, as the speaker received God, her enlightenment saved her as she stated that her darkened soul did not know she needed to be saved from
sin. The first four lines of the poem centralized the experience of the speaker having to comprehend an unfamiliar religion to Africa, Christianity, and realized that she is now a believer. At lines five and six - “Some view our sable race with scornful eye, Their colour is a diabolic die” - a shift occurs in the tone of the poem. The speaker implies that black people are seen as no more than animals and are treated the same as merchandise. Moreover, this assertion introduces the idea that bigotry and racism towards black people are wrong and anti-Christian. She feels that just because they are Black, the White Christians call them a “diabolic dye” which is vile and unjustified. Phillis Wheatley closes out the poem by strongly reminding the reader, aimed at the devout White Christians, that Black people are not evil. Poem lines 7-8, “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’angelic train”, adamantly declares that God views all people, no matter what race, as equal, capable of joining the angelic Host in heaven. Throughout the entire poem her message was clear - Black people are not immoral and God welcomes them with open arms, too. In, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”, Phillis Wheatley illustrated a few literary strategies throughout her poem. In the first line of the poem, symbolism referenced the “Pagan Land”, as Africans believe in different religions with several Gods rather than just the one worshiped within Christianity, (Desiree Johnson, Prezi.com). The idea of coming to a new land influenced Wheatley’s writing, experiencing new things, both positive and negative, in the new world. In the seventh line, Wheatley created an allusion - “Black as Cain” - referencing Cain from the Bible. The author expressed her feelings by referencing the Pagan people to Cain, who was the son of Adam and Eve, so overcome by jealousy that he killed his brother Able. Even though God punished him, Cain was able to receive forgiveness and regained virtuous morals. This Bible passage impacted Wheatley; to believe that even the man who committed murder is still loved by God and that the White Christians cannot speak for Him. Wheatley contributed to the long list of people who cried out for freedom and believed that slavery was morally wrong. Her writings influenced George Washington as he did not treat his slaves as objects, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights’ Movement. When she came into contact with Christianity, she changed forever. Wheatley believed if something or someone could change her mind, then she would change people’s minds about slavery as well.
Equiano worked with British abolitionists to placate the conditions of poor black people by settling them in the new British West African colonies. Whereas, Wheatley’s works provided demonstrable evidence of reason, which was previously considered absent among African slaves. In her poem “On the Death of the Rev. George Whitefield”, Phillis Wheatley acclaims that the Africans “shall be sons, and kings, and priests to God.” The Reverend Alexander Crummell educated African Americans; later, he moved to Liberia as a missionary
Douglass moves to attack the Christian beliefs of the American people, showing the great discrepancies between the ideals held in the Christian faith and the ideals held by slaveowners. Christians avoidance of abolishing slavery, yet worshipping a loving and peaceful God, may be the worse crime of them all. Douglass explains the hypocrisy of the American people by choosing to continue slavery while claiming the benevolent principles embedded in the Bible. At the moment he gives this speech, “they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, yet they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance” (Douglass 12). The American people acknowledge and thank God for their freedoms, yet purposefully
Wheatley was born in West Africa around 1750, and was captured when she was 7. John Wheatley purchased Phillis for his wife, Susanna; together they taught Phillis how to read and write, and as early as 12, Phillis was writing poetry and her first poem had been published. Wheatley’s poems implicitly advocated for racial equality, while condemning slavery. Her work received some negative feedback from political figureheads, such as Thomas Jefferson. White America classified a human as having the ability to read, write, and reason; therefore, leaving no room for the uneducated Africans, seeing Africans as nonhuman. Jefferson claimed Wheatley’s work was not literature because the moment he admitted Wheatley’s work was indeed literature, he would have had to admit she was a human being. The way Phillis Wheatley handled the adversity she faced is admirable. Wheatley definitely impacted American history, and “owes her place in history to advocates of inequality” (Young 1999
Readers unfamiliar with Phillis Wheatley may wonder of her background and who she was in particular to be able to gain rights to be mentioned in early American literature. Wheatley was born in 1753 and was captured by Africans, and sold to an American family known as the Wheatley’s. She quickly became a member of the Wheatley family, living in the home, and being tutored on reading and writing.
As a final point, Phillis Wheatley may have been bought a slave but she never lost faith and ended up being one of the best known poets in the early nineteenth century. This poem illustrates how she was living in darkness in Senegal, West Africa and because of slavery she was bought and brought to America. In this poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Wheatley uses poetic devices such as similes, metaphors, hyperboles to illustrate color and darkness, multiple meanings of words, and the relationship between skin tone and salvation. This poem seems to be a narrative of her life and how slavery might have been the best thing that happened to her.
Throughout the poem, “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”, Phyllis Wheatley suggest that she accepted the colonial idea of slavery, by first describing her captivity, even though this poem has a subversive double meaning that has sent an anti-slavery message. Wheatley’s choice of words indicates that her directed audience was educated at a sophisticated level because of the language chosen. Her audience was assumingly also familiar with the bible because of the religious references used. The bible was used as a reference because of its accessibility. Wheatley uses religious references to subversively warn her readers about slavery and its repercussions and to challenge her reader’s morals.
To further analyze a more spoiled African American of the time, Phillis Wheatley did address the issues of her race as much as Sojourner Truth did. Wheatley mainly wrote “to Whites, for Whites and generally in the Euro-American tradition at that time” (Jamison 408). Her content focused on Christianity, morality, virtue, and other non-African-American-related topics. Her poetry has an underlying attitude of a white, not an African American. She shares the same views and attitude as a Caucasian, therefore she is part of African American literature because she was born into it, but she did not share the particular views and struggles of the African American population. She was heavily praised, because it was not expected from an African such as herself, although her upbringing should be considered. Some white men admired her work, because it was more than
What is presented to the slaves as a religious tenet is merely propaganda used to quell rebellious behavior. They fear a society in which they no longer serve to benefit from slave labor, and so they fear rebellion, they fear objection, they fear events like the Nat Turner Insurrection. The system the slaveholders strive so ardently to protect begins to affect even them, those in power, negatively. They begin to cope with their fear the only way they know how, by projecting it upon the slaves.
Phillis Wheatley overcame extreme obstacles, such as racism and sexism, to become one of the most acclaimed poets in the 18th Century. Her works are characterized by religious and moral backgrounds, which are due to the extensive education of religion she received. In this sense, her poems also fit into American Poetry. However, she differs in the way that she is a black woman whose writings tackle greater subjects while incorporating her moral standpoint. By developing her writing, she began speaking out against injustices that she faced and, consequently, gave way to authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Countee Cullen.
The novel Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, published in 1845, provides Americans with a firsthand look into slavery prior to the Civil War. Douglass, born a slave early into the nineteenth century, encounters and survives the task of living as a slave. Within the ninth chapter of his life, an argument arises that claims Southern Christianity differs immensely from its Northern counterpart. A majority of Christians in non-slaveholding states at the time believed that Christian slaveholders were kinder after they converted, Douglass worked to invalidate this claim. In chapter nine, the ingenious use of dispassionate tone and allusion throughout the passages support the claim that a simple conversion to Christianity only gives justification to cruel southern slaveholders.
Phillis Wheatley was an African-born slave in the last quarter of the eighteenth-century in New England. She was born in West Africa and brought to America on the slave ship Phillis. She was, however, much more than chattel-she was a poet. Phillis was the first African American to have a book published. In a time when women were not expected to be able to read or write, and when teaching an African American to be literate was frowned upon, Phillis Wheatley became educated in Latin and English literature. The education of Phillis Wheatley was, for the most part, for the intent of training "a servant and would-be companion for domestic utility," in which they undoubtedly succeeded. However, they "got an intellectual adornment" who, with her knowledge of the poems of Alexander Pope, the "Puritanical whiteness of her thoughts," and ability to write poems, soon became a celebrity among Boston?s social elite (Richmond 18,19).
The poetry of Phillis Wheatley is crafted in such a manner that she is able to create a specific aim for each poem, and achieve that aim by manipulating her position as the speaker. As a slave, she was cautious to cross any lines with her proclamations, but was able to get her point across by humbling her own position. In religious or elegiac matters, however, she seemed to consider herself to be an authority. Two of her poems, the panegyric “To MAECENAS” and the elegy “On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age,” display Wheatley’s general consistency in form, but also her intelligence, versatility, and ability to adapt her position in order to achieve her goals.
He creates a vision of relief at the beginning of the passage by means of diction, similes, and an impeccable amount of imagery. Douglass also applies an approach for the application of syntax, diction, and connotative sense to amplify the feelings of loneliness and paranoia presented after emancipation. The result is the masterpiece that fluently runs from one state of mind following his escape to another. It is a masterpiece with a timeless sense of moral values being unconsciously taught to its audience, whether or not they succeed in deciphering it. Works Cited Frederick Douglass.
In “On Being Brought From Africa To America” Phillis Wheatley speaks directly from her experience of coming to America, and how she became very religious on her arrival, so she uses her religious beliefs to explain how lucky she was to be in America and how she made a lot of achievements. Phillis Wheatley was a young black female poet, who started discovering her love for writing when she came to America, although it was illegal to educate black people she found a way to teach herself to read and write, even though a lot of people of her race were told that they weren’t good enough to deserve to be Christians and also to enjoy the advantage of being a citizen in America, Wheatley overcame these immense obstacles and she was so grateful for the chance to be a part of the Christian word and also to hear the word of Christianity, she was also very happy that she was brought to America where she has the opportunity to read and write. “Phillis” wasn’t her real name but her master named her that because the slave ship she boarded to come to America was named Phillis.
Phillis Wheatley is the first African American woman to publish a book of poems. At the age of seven she was brought from Africa to America. As one of the luckier slaves, Wheatley was purchased by a wealthy master who taught her to read and write by the age of fourteen. Her poem On Being Brought from Africa to America is both powerful and poignant. Through the use of dark and Christian images Wheatley is able successfully tell of her transformation to Christianity and as a result influences her readers.