Phillis Wheatley Sterling Silver Necklace

As part of our historical icon collection, we are proud to present Phillis Wheatley, the american poet and novelist broadly recognized as the first African American woman and only the third American woman to publish a book of poems. Her works continues to be studied by historians, and her legacy has inspired generations of writers. Born around 1753 in Gambia, Africa, Wheatley was captured by enslavers and brought to America in 1761. Upon arrival, she was sold to the Wheatley family in Boston, Massachusetts. Her first name Phillis was derived from the ship that brought her to America, “the Phillis."  The Wheatley family educated her and within sixteen months of her arrival in America she could read the Bible, Greek and Latin classics, and British literature. She also studied astronomy and geography.

In 1773, with financial support from the English Countess of Huntingdon, Wheatley traveled to London with the Wheatley's son to publish her first collection of poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral—the first book written by an enslaved Black woman in America. It included a forward, signed by John Hancock and other Boston notables—as well as a portrait of Wheatley—all designed to prove that the work was indeed written by a Black woman. She was emancipated shortly thereafter.