Wheatley, Phillis (1753–05 December 1784), poet and cultivator of the epistolary writing style, was born in Gambia, Africa, probably along the fertile low lands of the Gambia River. She was enslaved as a child of seven or eight and sold in Boston to John and Susanna Wheatley on 11 July 1761. The horrors of the middle passage likely contributed to her persistent trouble with asthma. The Wheatleys apparently named the girl, who had nothing but a piece of dirty carpet to conceal her nakedness, after the slaver, the ...
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Wheatley, Phillis (1753-1784), poet and cultivator of the epistolary writing style
John C. Shields
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Wheatley, Phillis (1753-1784)
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Phyllis Wheatley. Engraving after Scipio Moorhead; frontispiece to her Poems on Various Subjects. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-40054 ).
