On October 18, 1773, Phillis Wheatley was emancipated from slavery in the wake of her first publication, a book of poetry entitled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Wheatley was the first African-American poet and the first African-American woman ever to publish. The broadside below is an elegiac poem in honor of George Whitefield, composed by Wheatley at age 17.
Elegiac poem, on the death of that celebrated divine, and eminent servant of Jesus Christ, the reverend and learned George Whitefield. By Phillis, a servant girl, of 17 years of age, belonging to Mr. J. Wheatley of Boston... Image courtesy of Connecticut History Online.
More poetry by Phillis Wheatley may be found through Opening History in A Celebration of Women Writers, American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera, and Connecticut History Online.
Sowing Culture 