Phillis Wheatley

Born around 1753 in West Africa, Phillis Wheatley was brought to Boston on the slave ship Phillis in 1761 and enslaved by the Wheatley family, who taught her to read and write. She showed remarkable literary talent very early, reading widely and writing poems that drew notice in colonial America and Britain.

In 1773, her collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London, making her the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry. Her writing often drew on religion, classical learning, and the politics of her time, and she became known on both sides of the Atlantic for her intelligence and skill.

After gaining her freedom, she married John Peters in 1778. Her later years were marked by hardship, and she died in 1784 at a young age. Even so, her poetry remains a landmark in American literature and in the history of Black writing.