relies on biblical allusions to erase the difference
between the races.
‘‘On Being Brought from Africa to America’’
(1773) has been read as Phillis Wheatley’s repu-
diation of her African heritage of paganism, but
not necessarily of her African identity as a mem-
ber of the black race (e.g., Isani 65). Derived from
the surface of Wheatley’s work, this appropriate
reading has generally been sensitive to her polit-
ical message and, at the same time, critically neg-
ligent concerning her artistic embodiment of this
message in the language and execution of her
poem. In this verse, however, Wheatley has
adeptly managed biblical allusions to do more
than serve as authorizations for her writing; as
finally managed in her poem, these allusions also
become sites where this license is transformed
into an artistry that in effect becomes exemplarily
self-authorized.
...In this poem Wheatley finds various ways
to defeat assertions alleging distinctions between
the black and the white races (O’Neale). She does
more here than remark that representatives of the
black race may be refinedintoangelicmatter—
made, as it were, spiritually white through redemp-
tive Christianizing. She also indicates, apropos her
point about spiritual change, that the Christian
sense of Original Sin applies equally to both
races. Both races inherit the barbaric blackness
of sin.
Particularly apt is the clever syntax of the
last two lines of the poem: ‘‘Remember,Christi-
ans,Negros,black asCain/ May be refin’d.’’
These lines can be read to say that Christians—
Wheatley uses the termChristiansto refer to the
white race—should remember that the black
race is also a recipient of spiritual refinement;
but these same lines can also be read to suggest
that Christians should remember that in a
spiritual sense both white and black people are
the sin-darkened descendants of Cain. This lat-
ter point refutes the notion, held by many of
Wheatley’s contemporaries, that Cain, marked
by God, is the progenitor of the black race only.
Wheatley’s revision of this myth possibly
emerges in part as a result of her indicative use
of italics, which equatesChristians,Negros,and
Cain(Levernier, ‘‘Wheatley’s’’); it is even more
likely that this revisionary sense emerges as a
result of the positioning of the comma after the
wordNegros.Albeit grammatically correct, this
comma creates a trace of syntactic ambiguity
that quietly instates both Christians and
Negroes as the mutual offspring of Cain who
are subject to refinement by divine grace.
In short, both races share a common herit-
age of Cain-like barbaric and criminal blackness,
a ‘‘benighted soul,’’ to which the poet refers in
the second line of her poem. In spiritual terms
bothwhite and black people are a ‘‘sable race,’’
whose common Adamic heritage is darkened by
a ‘‘diabolic die,’’ by the indelible stain of original
sin. In this sense, white and black people are
utterly equal before God, whose authority tran-
scends the paltry earthly authorities who have
argued for the inequality of the two races.
The poet needs some extrinsic warrant for
making this point in the artistic maneuvers of her
verse. This legitimation is implied when in the
last line of the poem Wheatley tells her readers to
remember that sinners ‘‘May be refin’d and join
th’ angelic train.’’ To instruct her readers to
rememberindicates that the poet is at this point
(apparently) only deferring to a prior authority
available to her outside her own poem, an
authority in fact licensing her poem. Specifically,
Wheatley deftly manages two biblical allusions
in her last line, both to Isaiah. That Wheatley
sometimes applied biblical language and allu-
sions to undercut colonial assumptions about
race has been documented (O’Neale), and that
she had a special fondness for the Old Testa-
ment prophecies of Isaiah is intimated by her
verse paraphrase entitled ‘‘Isaiah LXIII. 1–8’’
(Mason 75–76).
The first allusion occurs in the wordrefin’d.
Speaking for God, the prophet at one point says,
‘‘Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver;
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction’’
(Isaiah 48:10). As placed in Wheatley’s poem,
this allusion can be read to say that being white
(silver) is nosign of privilege (spiritually orSHE ALSO INDICATES, APROPOS HER POINTABOUT SPIRITUAL CHANGE, THAT THE CHRISTIAN SENSE
OF ORIGINAL SIN APPLIES EQUALLY TO BOTH RACES.
BOTH RACES INHERIT THE BARBARIC BLACKNESS
OF SIN.’’On Being Brought from Africa to America