#philliswheatley

Women Fought for American Independence—But Nobody Talked About It

During the American Revolution, women shattered expectations by becoming essential to the fight for independence. While colonial society had confined women to homemaking and childrearing, the conflict between Britain and the colonies gave women an unexpected stage to influence politics and prove their capabilities—a radical shift that planted the seeds for future women's rights movements.

The Unexpected Political Awakening

Women discovered their political voice from the moment tensions with Britain began escalating.[1] They weren't just supporting from the sidelines—they were the driving force behind major boycotts of British goods, refusing tea and organizing spinning bees to reduce dependence on British cloth.[1] These actions might sound domestic on the surface, but they were calculated political resistance that directly impacted the colonial economy and British profits.

Female writers like Mercy Otis Warren and Phillis Wheatley took on an even bolder role, using their pens to turn public opinion against British rule.[1] In an era when women weren't supposed to engage with politics at all, these women shaped the narrative of revolution itself.

Beyond the Sidelines: Women Warriors

Here's where it gets really interesting: some women actually fought in combat. While hundreds of women accompanied the Continental Army performing essential duties—washing clothes, nursing the wounded, cooking meals—figures like Margaret Corbin, Mary Ludwig Hays, and Deborah Sampson took up arms and fought against British soldiers.[1] They didn't just support the war effort; they were the war effort.

Key Facts

Colonial women were expected to focus only on homemaking and childrearing

Women organized boycotts of British imports and created alternatives like herbal tea

Female writers influenced public opinion against British rule

Hundreds of women served the Continental Army in support roles

Some women, including Deborah Sampson, actually fought as soldiers

Women were not granted political equality after the war

Historical Context

The American Revolution (1765-1789) emerged from growing tensions between the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain.[1] Women, who had been excluded from politics entirely, suddenly found themselves in a position where their actions—economic boycotts, written propaganda, and even military service—could directly impact the outcome of the conflict.

Historical Significance

Though women weren't recognized as politically equal to men after independence was won, their participation during the Revolution proved transformative.[1] Their involvement became a vital first step in the long, ongoing struggle for women's rights in the United States. By proving they could think politically, organize collectively, and fight militarily, colonial women fundamentally challenged the idea that politics was men's territory alone.

In honor of #WomensHistoryMonth, we are taking a look at this now famous frontispiece portrait of Phillis Wheatley, from her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773).

Because she arrived in the American colonies as an African slave, the year and location of Phillis Wheatley's birth remain unknown. She received her name from the slave ship Phillis in which she was transported and acquired the surname of her purchaser, John Wheatley, who intended her to be his wife's servant in their Boston home. Impressed by her intelligence and manner, the Wheatleys raised Phillis more as a daughter than a slave, allowing their oldest daughters to educate her and allotting her a bedroom and a place at their dining table.

After learning to speak, read, and write English with remarkable ease, Phillis Wheatley began to compose poetry. The verse that made her reputation was an elegy for George Whitefield, a Methodist minister whom Phillis Wheatley had seen preach in Boston shortly before his death in 1770. Her elegy, reprinted throughout the colonies and in London, earned her international fame. As a female African American poet, she captured much attention, and her only published volume, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, appeared in 1773 with a foreword attesting to her talent signed by eighteen prominent Bostonian men, and a portrait of the author sitting at her writing table with a pen in hand.

After Mrs. Wheatley died in 1774, the family dispersed and Phillis Wheatley married free black John Peters and settled in Delaware. Later abandoned by her husband, she worked in lodging houses until her health deteriorated and she became totally impoverished. She died alone on the outskirts of Boston of complications resulting from the birth of her third child.

Phillis Wheatley was the first African American to publish and the first American woman to try to support herself through her writing. Regarding slavery, she wrote in a letter in 1774 that "in every human breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance." She supported the American Revolution and admired political figures such as George Washington, with whom she corresponded.

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley (l. c. 1753-1784) was the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry and become recognized as a poet, overcoming the prevailing understanding of the time that a Black person was incapable of writing, much less writing poetry and, further, that an enslaved person, considered property, could do so.

She was not, as commonly claimed, the first African American author to publish poetry, as that distinction goes to Jupiter Hammon (l. 1711-1806), who published his An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries in 1761. Wheatley, however, holds the honor of being the first African American author to publish a full-length book of poetry, her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773.

Her book was widely praised both in England (where it was published) and in Britain's North American colonies. She received a personal response from General George Washington (l. 1732-1799) thanking her for a poem she had written in his honor in 1775, which was later published by Thomas Paine (l. 1737-1809) in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Not everyone was a fan of Wheatley's works, however, and some, most notably Thomas Jefferson (l. 1743-1826), dismissed her as simply a mimic who was only capable of reflecting concepts she had absorbed from White classical writers. The backward views of Jefferson, and those like him, did nothing to diminish popular appreciation for Wheatley's work, however, and she remained highly regarded, even after falling on hard times, until her death at the age of 31.

Today, Phillis Wheatley is regarded as one of the greatest American poets and continues to be honored as such through place names, memorials, plaques, and educational institutions.

Life & Work

Wheatley's brief biography, as given by L. Maria Child and included in Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction (1926), compiled and edited by Hallie Q. Brown, is given below, although some details are omitted, which will be addressed here.

Phillis Wheatley's actual name is unknown. She is thought to have been born c. 1753 in modern-day Gambia or Senegal and was one of the over three million people of those regions sold into slavery. She arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, aboard the slave ship Phillis in July 1761 and was purchased by John Wheatley, a wealthy merchant, and his wife Susanna. The Wheatleys named her after the ship that had brought her to them.

The Wheatleys had two children, twins, Mary and Nathaniel, who were then 18 years old. Mary taught young Phillis English and how to read and write, while Nathaniel assisted as his duties would allow. Phillis was a fast learner, and by the age of 12, was proficient in Greek, Latin, and the Bible. She wrote her first poem when she was 14, and, that same year, published another poem, on the near wreck of a merchant ship caught in a storm, in The Newport Mercury on 21 December 1767.

Although a slave, Phillis was treated like a member of the family and given light domestic work. The Wheatleys were progressive members of Boston society and, recognizing the girl's innate intelligence and quick wit, encouraged her education. She would frequently be invited to dinner parties given at the home to read her latest works, which were met with praise and gave her the confidence to write more.

By 1773, Phillis had a book-length manuscript of verse, and Susanna sent her to London, accompanied by Nathaniel, who was traveling there on family business, because she felt there were better chances of finding a publisher there than in the Colony of Massachusetts. Phillis had also been told by the family's doctor that she should avail herself of a sea voyage for her health as she suffered from asthma and a frail constitution.

Through Nathaniel's connections, Phillis was introduced to the members of high society in London, including the Lord Mayor, Frederick Bull. News of the young African poet circulated quickly, and Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, agreed to be her patron without ever having even met her. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published 1 September 1773.

An audience was arranged with King George III of Great Britain (r. 1760-1820), but news arrived that Susanna Wheatley was seriously ill, and Phillis and Nathaniel left for Boston before she could be presented to the king. Upon her arrival home, the Wheatleys set her free, and she cared for Susanna during her illness until her death in the spring of 1774. John died in 1778, and Mary soon after. Nathaniel moved to London to manage the business there, and Phillis was left alone in Boston.

She found work as a domestic before meeting the free Black grocer, John Peters, whom she married. The couple lived in poverty, and their two children died in infancy. Peters' business failed, and when he could not pay his debts, he was sent to prison in 1784.

Phillis was left alone again, this time with a third infant child, and found work as a scullery maid. Never very robust, Wheatley developed pneumonia and died on 5 December 1784, along with her infant daughter.

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Poems of Phillis Wheatley and Jefferson's Criticism

Although Phillis Wheatley's poetry found an audience upon publication, it was not well received by everyone and some, notably Thomas Jefferson (l. 1743-1826), dismissed her work entirely as "mimicry" since, according to the prevailing understanding of the time, Blacks were incapable of the "higher thought" that was necessary in writing poetry.

There was no way a slave-holding society could recognize that Blacks were equal in every way to Whites while continuing to hold them in bondage. Many pseudo-scientific and religious justifications for slavery were widely circulated to 'prove' that Blacks were naturally inferior to Whites and, therefore, that slavery was ordained by God so that 'simple' Black people could be properly 'cared for' by their 'benevolent' White masters.

Phillis Wheatley (l. c. 1753-1784) challenged this belief, first in 1770 with a popular poem on the Reverend George Whitefield, and then with the publication of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773. Scholar Oscar Reiss comments:

The book was reviewed in England, and all reviewers were positive in their critiques. They were impressed with her knowledge of mythology and literature as well as her piety, with some writing that there was a need for new views about blacks' mental ability. The book was not considered a work of genius, but they were impressed that Phyllis had been introduced to the English language only 16 months earlier. It was a belief commonly held in England that "people born closer to the sun" were dull compared with those raised in cooler climates. Wheatley's work caused many Englishmen to take a second look at Africans.

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However that may be, it did not have the same effect on Thomas Jefferson (later the third President of the United States, serving 1801-1809) who, as a British colonial from slave-holding Virginia, rejected Wheatley's work as nothing more than what one might expect of a child mimicking the words and behavior of an adult. Jefferson does not devote much space to Wheatley in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), but his dismissal of her work, along with his commentary on racial differences generally, encouraged later slaveholders to maintain and defend the inferiority of Blacks in the United States.

Wheatley's Rise to Fame

Phillis Wheatley (l. c. 1753-1784), an enslaved African American in Boston, first gained recognition in September 1770 through her poem On the Death of the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, published as a broadside in Boston and then reprinted at least nine times in Boston, London, Newport (Rhode Island), New York, and Philadelphia. The poem celebrated the life and teachings of the famous evangelist George Whitefield (l. 1714-1770), a popular, if controversial, figure.

This poem is usually considered her first publication because an earlier poem of hers, On the Affray in King Street, on the Evening of 5 March – published in March 1770 and dealing with the Boston Massacre of 5 March 1770 – was unsigned. Wheatley, encouraged by the publication of her work, continued to write, bringing out Poems on Various Subjects in London in 1773.

The book included a letter from her master, John Wheatley, attesting to her authorship, as well as attestations from leading White Bostonians who had brought her to court in 1772 to question her on whether she had actually written the poems published under her name. Wheatley successfully defended her authorship, and the decision of the court informed the attestations.

As Reiss notes, the book was well-received by the British literary community, and once published in the North American Colonies, it was just as successful. Still, Poems on Various Subjects, even with its preface of attestations from respectable White gentlemen, could not convince everyone that a Black woman could write poetry, much less poetry of such depth and lyrical quality.

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Poèmes de Phillis Wheatley et critique de Jefferson

Bien que la poésie de Phillis Wheatley ait trouvé un lectorat dès sa publication, elle ne fut pas bien accueillie par tout le monde. Certains, dont notamment Thomas Jefferson ( 1743-1826), qualifièrent son travail de simple "imitation" car, selon la pensée dominante de l’époque, les Noirs étaient incapables de la "pensée éclairée" indispensable à la poésie.

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley (vers 1753-1784) fut la première poétesse Afro-Américaine à être publiée et à se faire un nom comme telle. Elle contrecarra ainsi l’idée largement répandue à cette époque selon laquelle une personne noire était incapable d’écrire, encore moins de composer de la poésie, et, plus encore, qu’une personne réduite en esclavage, considérée comme un bien, ne pouvait en être capable.

Lesson 95: "Britannia owns her Independent Reign,

Hibernia, Scotia, and the Realms of Spain;

And Great Germania’s ample Coast admires

The generous Spirit that Columbia fires.

Auspicious Heaven shall fill with fav’ring Gales,

Where e’er Columbia spreads her swelling Sails:

To every Realm shall Peace her Charms display,

And Heavenly Freedom spread her gold Ray."

A name from the mid-1770's that you almost certainly didn't know: Phillis Wheatley.

Born in Senegal in 1754, Phillis was enslaved at the age of eight and brought to the American colonies as the property of Susannah and John Wheatley. The Wheatleys recognized her innate talent for languages and taught Phillis to read and write, in both English and Latin. In her teens, Phillis managed the unthinkable for someone of her age and station at that time: she published "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" --the first-ever African-American woman to publish a book of poetry in the Colonies (though the actual publisher was Archibald Bell, of England).

Scandal almost immediately erupted around the publication; by 1772 Phillis found herself a cause célèbre for Abolitionists from Boston all the way to England. She and the Wheatleys found themselves in the unusual position of having to defend her work; as the prevailing attitude of the times could not imagine the possibility of intellectual or aesthetic gifts in Africans. Religious themes permeated much of Phillis's early work, although there was an unmistakable romanticism of the notion of America as its own nation (which she would repeatedly refer to as "glorious Columbia").

Wheatley's work and reputation ultimately brought her into correspondence with a number of Revolutionary leaders and Founders, to include George Washington (who she actually met), John Hancock, Thomas Hutchinson, and (significantly) Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Conversely Thomas Jefferson was dismissive of her work, stating it to be below the dignity of literary criticism. Generations later the nascent Civil Rights movement of the 1960's would also be critical of her work, due to some of its recurring religious themes that lent weight to the notion of slavery as somehow being a noble path to a soul's salvation (common Biblical folklore held that Africans were the "seed of Cain").

After the Revolution, Wheatley was emancipated and lived in Wilmington, Massachusetts. She married and had 3 children, none of whom survived infancy. She had set about trying to find a publisher for a second collection but was unsuccessful, and died at the age of 31. An actual American edition of her published poems would not appear until 1786 --two years after her death.

For further study:

https://greatblackpoets.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/phyllis-wheatley-the-african-genius-whose-poetry-set-her-free/