Read The Trials of Phillis Wheatley Online
Authors: Henry Louis Gates
The Trials of Phillis Wheatley (5 page)
Walker was never a slave; he was born to a free black woman in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1796. In 1825 he moved to Boston, where he established a second-hand clothing business. Walker became the “principal agent” of
Freedom's Journal
, the nation's first black newspaper, first published in New York in 1827. We can get a sense of Walker's tone and content from the following passage:
Freedom's Journal
, the nation's first black newspaper, first published in New York in 1827. We can get a sense of Walker's tone and content from the following passage:
We, (coloured People of these United States), are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began . . . and the white Christians of America, who hold us in slavery, (or, more properly speaking, pretenders to Christianity), treat us more cruel and barbarous than any heathen nation did among people whom it had subjected.
Walker's relation to Jefferson was complex. Writing just three years after Jefferson's
deathâbut forty-four years after Jefferson had written “Query XIV”âWalker walked a fine line between expressing his admiration for Jefferson's mind and the Declaration of Independence, in particular, yet refuting Jefferson's insinuations that blacks were not of the human family. Walker asked his readers if they realized “that Mr. Jefferson was one of as great a characters as ever lived among the whites?” And as such, Walker was determined to prove Mr. Jefferson wrong. Indeed, Jefferson's words, he continued, were not Jefferson's fault entirely, but were in part the fault of black people themselves. Refute the message “by your own actions,” Walker argued, but don't shoot the messenger. Jefferson was wrong, but he was not the devil. No, Jefferson is “a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts.” Indeed, he continued, Jefferson was sui generis: “a much greater philosopher the world has never afforded.” It was precisely for that reason that his estimation carried such weight:
deathâbut forty-four years after Jefferson had written “Query XIV”âWalker walked a fine line between expressing his admiration for Jefferson's mind and the Declaration of Independence, in particular, yet refuting Jefferson's insinuations that blacks were not of the human family. Walker asked his readers if they realized “that Mr. Jefferson was one of as great a characters as ever lived among the whites?” And as such, Walker was determined to prove Mr. Jefferson wrong. Indeed, Jefferson's words, he continued, were not Jefferson's fault entirely, but were in part the fault of black people themselves. Refute the message “by your own actions,” Walker argued, but don't shoot the messenger. Jefferson was wrong, but he was not the devil. No, Jefferson is “a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts.” Indeed, he continued, Jefferson was sui generis: “a much greater philosopher the world has never afforded.” It was precisely for that reason that his estimation carried such weight:
Now I ask you candidly, my suffering brethren in time, who are candidates for the eternal worlds, how could Mr. Jefferson but have given the world these remarks respecting us, when we are so submissive to them, and so much servile deceit prevail among ourselvesâwhen we so
meanly
submit to their murderous lashes, to which neither the Indians nor any other people under Heaven would submit? No, they would die to a man, before they would suffer such things from men who are no better than themselves, and
perhaps not so good.
Yes, how can our friends but be embarrassed, as Mr. Jefferson says, by the question, “What further is to be done with these people?” For while they are working for our emancipation, we are, by our treachery, wickedness and deceit, working against ourselves and our childrenâhelping ours, and the enemies of god, to keep us and our dear little children in their infernal chains of slavery!!!
Indeed, our friends cannot but relapse and join themselves “with those who are actuated by
sordid avarice only
!!!!” For my own part, I am glad Mr. Jefferson has advanced his positions for your sake; for you will either have to contradict or confirm him by your own actions, and not by what our friends have said or done for us; for those things are other men's labors, and do not satisfy the Americans, who are waiting for us to prove to them ourselves that we are men, before they will be willing to admit the fact; I pledge you my sacred word of honour. That honor, that Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us, have sunk deep into the hearts of millions of the whites, and never will be removed this side of eternity. For how can they, when we are confirming him every day, for our
groveling submissions
and
treachery
?
meanly
submit to their murderous lashes, to which neither the Indians nor any other people under Heaven would submit? No, they would die to a man, before they would suffer such things from men who are no better than themselves, and
perhaps not so good.
Yes, how can our friends but be embarrassed, as Mr. Jefferson says, by the question, “What further is to be done with these people?” For while they are working for our emancipation, we are, by our treachery, wickedness and deceit, working against ourselves and our childrenâhelping ours, and the enemies of god, to keep us and our dear little children in their infernal chains of slavery!!!
Indeed, our friends cannot but relapse and join themselves “with those who are actuated by
sordid avarice only
!!!!” For my own part, I am glad Mr. Jefferson has advanced his positions for your sake; for you will either have to contradict or confirm him by your own actions, and not by what our friends have said or done for us; for those things are other men's labors, and do not satisfy the Americans, who are waiting for us to prove to them ourselves that we are men, before they will be willing to admit the fact; I pledge you my sacred word of honour. That honor, that Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us, have sunk deep into the hearts of millions of the whites, and never will be removed this side of eternity. For how can they, when we are confirming him every day, for our
groveling submissions
and
treachery
?
Not only did Walker's assessment of Jefferson's towering intellect shine through in this
example, but Walker used both Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as the structural model for his pamphlet (his
Appeal
is in the form of “Articles”), citing the words of the Declaration as the model and rallying call for black freedom. “See your Declaration Americans!” he declared; “Do you understand your own language? Hear your language!” he exclaimed. Walker's appeal, ironically enough from the blackest and most militant man alive in 1829, is implicitly and explicitly a tribute in so many ways to Thomas Jefferson. When Nat Turner planned his famous revolt of 1831, a revolt many feel to have been inspired by Walker's
Appeal
, he chose July 4 as his ideal date to launch it, as a tribute to Jefferson's words.
example, but Walker used both Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as the structural model for his pamphlet (his
Appeal
is in the form of “Articles”), citing the words of the Declaration as the model and rallying call for black freedom. “See your Declaration Americans!” he declared; “Do you understand your own language? Hear your language!” he exclaimed. Walker's appeal, ironically enough from the blackest and most militant man alive in 1829, is implicitly and explicitly a tribute in so many ways to Thomas Jefferson. When Nat Turner planned his famous revolt of 1831, a revolt many feel to have been inspired by Walker's
Appeal
, he chose July 4 as his ideal date to launch it, as a tribute to Jefferson's words.
I do not mean to imply that all black activists were willing to embrace Mr. Jefferson as the new architect of the tenets of their freedom struggle, or that the process was not a messy one, full of contradictions. William Hamilton wrestled out loud with this dilemma,
in the year before Walker would publish the first edition of his
Appeal
. Hamilton was one of the dominant black figures in the antislavery movement from 1800 to his death in 1836.
in the year before Walker would publish the first edition of his
Appeal
. Hamilton was one of the dominant black figures in the antislavery movement from 1800 to his death in 1836.
Hamilton, in a speech in 1827, called Jefferson an ambidextrous philosopher “who can reason contrariwise,” since he “first tells you that all men are created equal” and “next proves that one class of men are not equal to another.” But in that same year, Hamilton himself exemplified a bit of this ambidexterity when, in a Fourth of July oration, he proposed that African Americans discontinue celebrating independence on that date.
Freedom's Journal
, in its July 11 and 18 issues, discusses the use of July 5, rather than the Fourth of July, as a sign of protest. Blacks such as William Wells Brown, Charles Lenox Redmond, and Charlotte Forten all spoke or wrote about the ironies of celebrating the Fourth of July in a nation where slavery remained legal. And no one was more vehement about this contradiction than was Frederick Douglass, whose
Fourth of July oration of 1852 was delivered in Rochester at the request of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” Douglass asks. “This Fourth of July is
yours
not
mine
.
You
may rejoice,
I
must mourn.”
Freedom's Journal
, in its July 11 and 18 issues, discusses the use of July 5, rather than the Fourth of July, as a sign of protest. Blacks such as William Wells Brown, Charles Lenox Redmond, and Charlotte Forten all spoke or wrote about the ironies of celebrating the Fourth of July in a nation where slavery remained legal. And no one was more vehement about this contradiction than was Frederick Douglass, whose
Fourth of July oration of 1852 was delivered in Rochester at the request of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” Douglass asks. “This Fourth of July is
yours
not
mine
.
You
may rejoice,
I
must mourn.”
Nevertheless, despite his harsh indictment of the use of the Fourth as “a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages,” Douglass ends his speech by praising Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, “the great spirit it contains, and the genius of American Institutions.”
James McCune Smith was another black thinker who notably and eloquently tried to show the error of Jefferson is his essay “On the Fourteenth Query of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia,” published in the
Anglo-African Magazine
in August 1859. Calling Jefferson “the apostle of democracy,” McCune Smith laid claim to the principles espoused by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, arguing that “we the people,” on the eve of the
Civil War, applied equally to white and black precisely because the so-called blacks in Jefferson's day had become “colored people.” “Let the American public but call men people,” he write, “and those men . . . are already raised by the public voice into the dignity and privileges of citizenship.”
Anglo-African Magazine
in August 1859. Calling Jefferson “the apostle of democracy,” McCune Smith laid claim to the principles espoused by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, arguing that “we the people,” on the eve of the
Civil War, applied equally to white and black precisely because the so-called blacks in Jefferson's day had become “colored people.” “Let the American public but call men people,” he write, “and those men . . . are already raised by the public voice into the dignity and privileges of citizenship.”
The line of thinking articulated by Walker continued well into the 20
th
century: black authors accepted the premise that a group, a “race,” had to demonstrate its equality through the creation of literature. When the historian David Levering Lewis aptly calls the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s “art as civil rights,” it is Jefferson who stands as the subtext for this formulation. Or listen to these words from James Weldon Johnson, written in 1922:
th
century: black authors accepted the premise that a group, a “race,” had to demonstrate its equality through the creation of literature. When the historian David Levering Lewis aptly calls the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s “art as civil rights,” it is Jefferson who stands as the subtext for this formulation. Or listen to these words from James Weldon Johnson, written in 1922:
A people may become great through many means, but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and
standard of the literature and art they have produced. No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior.
standard of the literature and art they have produced. No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior.
In their efforts to prove Jefferson wrong, in other words, black writers created a body of literature, one with a prime political motive: to demonstrate black equality. Surely this is one of the oddest origins of a bellestric tradition in the history of world literature. Indeed, when Wole Soyinka received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, a press release on behalf of the Nigerian government declared thatâbecause of this prizeâno longer could the world see Africans as distinctly inferior. The specter of Thomas Jefferson haunts even there, in Africa in 1986, as does the shadow of Phillis Wheatley.
Now, given all of the praise and attention that Wheatley received, given her unprecedented popularity and fame, one might be forgiven for thinking that Wheatley's career
took off with the publication of her poems in 1773, and that she lived happily ever after. She did not. In the spring of 1774, the British occupied Boston. Susanna Wheatley died the same year, and when John Wheatley fled the city Phillis moved to Providence, where John Wheatley's daughter, Mary, and her husband lived. With the outbreak of war, in April of 1775, Phillis's prospects dimmed considerably. A number of the people who had signed the attestation were dead, and the others who had earlier supported her, both Tories and Patriots, were more concerned with winning the war than with the African prodigy. By late 1776, Wheatley had moved back to Boston. In 1778, she married a black man named John Peters. Peters was a small-time grocer and a sometime lawyer about whom very little is knownâonly that he successfully applied for the right to sell spirits in his store, and that a Wheatley relative remembered him as someone who affected the airs of a gentleman. Meanwhile, the poet continued her efforts to
publish a second volume. In 1779, she advertised six times in the Boston
Evening Post & General Advertiser,
mentioning that she intended to dedicate the book to Benjamin Franklin. The advertisement failed to generate the necessary number of subscribers, and the book was never published.
took off with the publication of her poems in 1773, and that she lived happily ever after. She did not. In the spring of 1774, the British occupied Boston. Susanna Wheatley died the same year, and when John Wheatley fled the city Phillis moved to Providence, where John Wheatley's daughter, Mary, and her husband lived. With the outbreak of war, in April of 1775, Phillis's prospects dimmed considerably. A number of the people who had signed the attestation were dead, and the others who had earlier supported her, both Tories and Patriots, were more concerned with winning the war than with the African prodigy. By late 1776, Wheatley had moved back to Boston. In 1778, she married a black man named John Peters. Peters was a small-time grocer and a sometime lawyer about whom very little is knownâonly that he successfully applied for the right to sell spirits in his store, and that a Wheatley relative remembered him as someone who affected the airs of a gentleman. Meanwhile, the poet continued her efforts to
publish a second volume. In 1779, she advertised six times in the Boston
Evening Post & General Advertiser,
mentioning that she intended to dedicate the book to Benjamin Franklin. The advertisement failed to generate the necessary number of subscribers, and the book was never published.
Wheatley's freedom had enslaved her to a life of hardship. Peters abandoned her soon after she gave birth to their third child (the first two died in infancy). She placed her last advertisement in the September, 1784, issue of
The Boston Magazine
and died in December, at the age of thirty, poor and alone. Her baby died with her. Peters is thought to have sold the only copy of the second manuscript. Several poems from this manuscript have survived. A few years ago, one surfaced at Christie's and sold for nearly seventy thousand dollars, but the full manuscript has never been recovered.
The Boston Magazine
and died in December, at the age of thirty, poor and alone. Her baby died with her. Peters is thought to have sold the only copy of the second manuscript. Several poems from this manuscript have survived. A few years ago, one surfaced at Christie's and sold for nearly seventy thousand dollars, but the full manuscript has never been recovered.
And what happens to her literary legacy after she dies? Interwoven through Phillis
Wheatley's intriguing and troubling afterlife is a larger parable about the politics of authenticity. For, as I've said, those rituals of validation scarcely died with Phillis Wheatley; on the contrary, they would become a central theme in the abolitionist era, where the publication of the slave narratives by and large also depended on letters of authentication that testified to the veracity and capacities of the ex-slave author who had written this work “by himself ” or “by herself.”
Wheatley's intriguing and troubling afterlife is a larger parable about the politics of authenticity. For, as I've said, those rituals of validation scarcely died with Phillis Wheatley; on the contrary, they would become a central theme in the abolitionist era, where the publication of the slave narratives by and large also depended on letters of authentication that testified to the veracity and capacities of the ex-slave author who had written this work “by himself ” or “by herself.”
One might be forgiven, too, for imagining that Phillis Wheatley would be among the most venerated names among black Americans today, as celebrated as Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was probably true that, as one writer claimed several years ago, “historically throughout black America, more YMCAs, schools, dormitories and libraries have been named for Phillis Wheatley than for any other black woman.” And, indeed, I can testify to the presence before 1955 of the Phillis Wheatley
Elementary School in Ridgeley, West Virginia, a couple of hours up the Potomac, near Piedmont, where I grew upâthough it took until college for me to learn just who Miss Wheatley was.
Elementary School in Ridgeley, West Virginia, a couple of hours up the Potomac, near Piedmont, where I grew upâthough it took until college for me to learn just who Miss Wheatley was.
That Phillis Wheatley is not a household word within the black community is owing largely to one poem that she wrote, an eight-line poem entitled “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” The poem was written in 1768, just seven years after Phillis was purchased by Susanna Wheatley. Phillis was about fourteen years old.
The eight-line poem reads as follows:
'Twas mercy brought me from my
Pagan
land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a
Saviour
too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor
knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their coulour is a diabolic die,”
Remember,
Christians
,
Negros
, black as
Cain
,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
Pagan
land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a
Saviour
too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor
knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their coulour is a diabolic die,”
Remember,
Christians
,
Negros
, black as
Cain
,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
This, it can be safely said, has been the most reviled poem in African-American literature. To speak in such glowing terms about the “mercy” manifested by the slave trade was not exactly going to endear Miss Wheatley to black power advocates in the 1960s. No Angela Davis she! But as scholars such as William Robinson, Julian Mason, John Shields, and Vincent Carretta point out, her political detractors ignore the fact that Wheatley elsewhere in her poems complained bitterly about the human costs of the slave trade, as in this example from her famous poem, “To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth.”
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my
song,
Wonder from whence my love of
Freedom
sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common
good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch'd from
Afric's
fancy'd happy
seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent's breasts
Steel'd was that soul and by no misery
mov'd
That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
song,
Wonder from whence my love of
Freedom
sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common
good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch'd from
Afric's
fancy'd happy
seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent's breasts
Steel'd was that soul and by no misery
mov'd
That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
And there is Wheatley's letter to the Reverend Samson Occom, “a converted Mohegan Indian Christian Minister” who was the eighteenth century's most distinguished graduate from Moor's Charity Indian School of Lebanon, Connecticut, which would relocate
in 1770 to Hanover, New Hampshire, where it would be renamed after the Earl of Dartmouth (and its student body broadened, against many protests, to include whites). The letter was published several months after her manumission. It appeared in
The Connecticut Gazette
on March 11, 1774, and reads, in part:
in 1770 to Hanover, New Hampshire, where it would be renamed after the Earl of Dartmouth (and its student body broadened, against many protests, to include whites). The letter was published several months after her manumission. It appeared in
The Connecticut Gazette
on March 11, 1774, and reads, in part:
In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us. God grant Deliverance in his own Way and Time, and grant his honour upon all those whose Avarice impels them to countenance and help the Calamities of their fellow Creatures. This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and actions are so diametrically opposite. How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the exercise
of oppressive Power over others agree,âI humbly think it does not require the Penetration of a Philosopher to determine.
of oppressive Power over others agree,âI humbly think it does not require the Penetration of a Philosopher to determine.
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