On Being Brought from
Africa to America
Phillis Wheatley’s poem ‘‘On Being Brought
from Africa to America’’ appeared in her 1773
volumePoems on Various Subjects, Religious and
Moral, the first full-length published work by an
African American author. In the poem, she gives
thanks for having been brought to America,
where she was raised to be a Christian. Wheatley
was hailed as a genius, celebrated in Europe and
America just as the American Revolution broke
out in the colonies. Though a slave when the
book was published in England, she was set
free based on its success. She had been publish-
ing poems and letters in American newspapers
on both religious matters and current topics. She
was thus part of the emerging dialogue of the
new republic, and her poems to leading public
figures in neoclassical couplets, the English ver-
sion of the heroic meters of the ancient Greek
poet Homer, were hailed as masterpieces. Some
readers, looking for protests against slavery in
her work, have been disenchanted upon instead
finding poems like ‘‘On Being Brought from
Africa to America’’ to reveal a meek acceptance
of her slave fate.
One critical problem has been an incomplete
collection of Wheatley’s work. In consideration
of all her poems and letters, evidence is now
available for her own antislavery views.Phillis
Wheatley: Complete Writings (2001), which
includes ‘‘On Being Brought from Africa to
America,’’ finally gives readers a chance to
form their own opinions, as they may consider
221PHILLIS WHEATLEY
1773