Phillis Wheatley

Poems on various subjects, religious and moral

"Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" by Phillis Wheatley is a collection of 39 poems published in 1773. This groundbreaking work made Wheatley the first published African-American woman poet in America. Unable to find a publisher in the American colonies due to widespread beliefs about racial inferiority, Wheatley turned to London. Before publication, she faced an extraordinary examination by eighteen prominent Boston figures, including John Hancock, who attested that an enslaved woman could indeed write poetry. Her collection arrived in Boston aboard the Dartmouth, miraculously surviving the Tea Party protests.