of Alexander Pope. Phillis, who began writing her
own poetry, imitating the style of the neoclassic
poets, published her first poem in 1767 with the
assistance of her mentor and teacher, Mary. She
was 13 years old. Another early effort, “On the
Affray in King Street, On the Evening of the 5th
of March, 1770,” written when Wheatley was 17,
memorializes the Boston Massacre and her fellow
black Bostonian, Crispus Attucks, preserving his
role and place in this significant moment in colo-
nial America’s fight for freedom and independence
in the following lines:
Long in Freedom’s Cause the wise contend,
Dear to your unity shall Fame extend;
While to the World the letter’s Stone shall
tell,
How Caldwell, Attucks, Gray, and
Mav’rick fell.
(Gates, The Trials, 21)These verses illustrate the rhetorical strategy
Wheatley often took in her poetry. Without
mounting an abolitionist podium to claim or de-
clare it vociferously, she records, like FREDERICK
DOUGLASS, the African American’s love of freedom,
to the degree that he was willing to give his life to
obtain it. Thus, though not as directly or as radi-
cally, Wheatley uses her pen as a powerful weapon
against oppression.
Wheatley gained celebrity status when her elegy
“On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield
1770,” memorializing the popular 18th-century
British evangelist, was published as a broadside
in Boston and, later, throughout the northeast-
ern colonies. A large number of Wheatley’s poems
were elegies, “commemorating the deaths of fellow
Bostonians, and apparently written at the request
of families” (Bruce, 41). “On the Death of the Rev.
Mr. George Whitefield 1770” offers an excellent
example of her use of this genre. In it Wheatley
celebrates Whitefield, the historical personality,
and his reputation as a superb and unequalled
rhetorician and preacher of the gospel:
HAIL, happy saint, on thine immortal
throne,Possessed of glory, life and bliss unknown;
We hear no more the music of thy tongue,
Thy wonted auditories cease to throng,
Thy sermons in unequalled accents flowed;
And every bosom with devotion glowed;
Thou didst in strains of eloquence refined
Inflame the heart, and captivate the mind.
(The Poems 15)Wheatley celebrates and records as well White-
field’s more inclusive stance—his willingness to
convert everyone, irrespective of race or class,
which, might also indicate her indirect critique of
the racism that surrounded her.“Take him, my dear Americans,” he said,
“Be your complaints on his kind boson laid:
“Take him, ye Africans, he longs for you;
“Impartial Savior is his title due;
“Washed in the fountain of redeeming
blood,
“You shall be sons, and kings, and priest to
God.”
(The Poems 16)Similarly, Wheatley celebrates the chivalry of in-
trepid General George Washington in “To His Ex-
cellency General Washington,” encouraging him:
“Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, /
Thy every action let the goddess guide. / A crown,
a mansion, and a throne that shine, / With gold
unfading, Washington be thine” (Robinson, 109).
With seeming humility yet authoritative voice,
Wheatley writes in “To the University of Cam-
bridge, in New England” to the students of Har-
vard, calling their attention to the consequences of
living a sinful life.Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,
By you be shunned, nor once remit your
guard;
Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.
Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
An Ethiope tells you ’tis your greatest foe;
Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
And in immense perdition sinks the soul.
(The Poems 11)544 Wheatley, Phillis