The first book ever published by an African American. Wheatley’s technically brilliant, but considering the appalling state of 18th Century English poetry, is ham-strung by her models. The book’s more interesting as a historical document than as poetry. The 1834 edition (and its reprints) has a very useful memoir of her.

Briefly, she was stolen in Africa and exported to New England where she was bought by the Wheatleys. When they realised she was clever, Mrs Wheatley had her educated and kept as a sort of pet. She appears to have used Wheatley’s poetic ability for social clout, taking her round to people’s parties and having her perform her tricks. The son appears to have used her in a similar way, taking her to England with him when he was looking for a wife.

Reading around a bit online I found the suggestion that because she was kept segregated from the other slaves she may not have understood the true nature of the situation she was in. I’m not convinced by this theory. I think the poetry reveals a very clever young lady who knew her audience very well and knew how to tell them what they wanted to hear. See for example the opening line of ‘On Being Brought From Africa to America’: “’T was mercy brought me from my pagan land”. Most of the poems have a religious element to them and she hardly ever tells us anything personal about herself. Though I might point out that one of the longest poems is a retelling of David and Goliath, the triumph of the underdog. Her stock-in-trade is elegies on the recently deceased, presumably written on request. In these she frequently presents herself as some sort of psychopomp. The Europeans must have thought there to be something unnatural about her, and many did not believe her existence to be within the bounds of reality. I think that she tried to use these poems to secure her position in white society as some sort of psychic figure. She didn’t have a good hand, but she played it as well as she could.

She puts me in mind of a real life version of Pamphila from Terence’s play The Eunuch. Of course, this is a tragedy. Despite professing to like her so much, when Mrs Wheatley died she had not taken the opportunity to formally manumit her and had made absolutely no provision for her in her will. What kind of a person buys a trafficked child, uses them like that and then abandons them? Without an owner to take her into white peoples homes she no longer had access to her market. Wheatley died a few years later in squalor and poverty, having seen the death of her children. Have a good day. ( )