Phillies wheatley biography timeline project
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Phillis Wheatley is born.
- Phillis Wheatley was brought as a slave to America. John Wheatley of Boston bought her as a present for his wife. She was going to be her maid.
- She learned to read and write at nine years old and was good at Latin, Greek, and classics. Her masters encouraged her to read and write. This was unusual for a slave, because most masters did not want their slaves to be educated.
- Phillis Wheatley was quick to learn when John and Savannah Wheatley educated her. She learned about ancient history and theology. She became part of the family while still remaining a slave.
- At thirteen, Wheatley published her first poem in the Newport Mercury Newspaper. She modeled her work after famous English poets. A lot of her poems were about religious things because she was taught about the Bible from an early age.
- She gathered attention when she wrote a poem on the preacher George Whitefield. This poem was published in ma
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Phillis Wheatley
African-born American poet (1753–1784)
Phillis Wheatley Peters, also spelled Phyllis and Wheatly (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784) was an American author who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry.[2][3] Born in West Africa, she was kidnapped and subsequently sold into slavery at the age of sju or eight and transported to North America, where she was bought by the Wheatley family of Boston. After she learned to read and write, they encouraged her poetry when they saw her talent.
On a 1773 trip to London with the Wheatleys' son, seeking publication of her work, Wheatley met prominent people who became her patrons. The publication in London of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral on September 1, 1773, brought her fame both in England and the American colonies. Prominent figures, such as George Washington, praised her work.[4] A few years later, African-American poet Jup
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Stephanie Sheridan
In 1773, Phillis Wheatley accomplished something that no other woman of her status had done. When her book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, appeared, she became the first American slave, the first person of African descent, and only the third colonial American woman to have her work published.
Born in Africa about 1753 and sold as a slave in Boston in 1761, Phillis was a small, sick child who caught the attention of John and Susanna Wheatley. Purchased as a domestic servant for Susanna, the small girl was named after the ship that brought her to Boston, the Phillis, and her master, Wheatley. Susanna soon discovered that Phillis had an extraordinary capacity to learn. She relieved the child of most domestic duties and educated her, with assistance from her own daughter, Mary, in reading, writing, religion, language, literature, and history.
Phillis began publishing her poems around the age of twelve, and soon afterward her fame