(Originally Published October 16, 2019)
Phillis Wheatley was a young West African girl of six or seven when she was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Unfamiliar with the English language on arrival in the colonies, in less than two years she acquired the language with such mastery that she began reading challenging passages of biblical texts and writing poetry, the first of which was published in 1767; she was 14. Six years later she would publish Poems on Various Subjects, becoming the first published African American woman.
Her work represented a controversial achievement at the time. While her poetry gained her renown in the colonies and in England (George Washington apparently among her appreciators), dominant prejudices left many, including Thomas Jefferson, believing that literary achievements were impossible of the negro due to their perceived inferiority. This criticism did not restrain the strength of her voice, however. Before the publishing of Poems, she wrote on a variety of subjects, including slavery, and after her emancipation - which occurred following the release of Poems - her poetry became openly critical of slavery as an institution.
“T’was 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 colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.”
As the first published African American woman and an early freeman supporting anti-slavery causes, Wheatley has been championed by many as a pioneer in the racial and gender equality movements. However, her poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is often controversial for its seemingly forgiving treatment of slavery, especially its opening lines which proclaim that it was "mercy [that] brought me from my Pagan land." The suggestion that the slave trade could be seen as a mercy is criticized - and fairly - by modern readers.
Considering the context of Wheatley's religious education, it seems likely that the mercy she speaks of is the mercy of God, who brought her to know him and to be saved, rather than the mercy of the white men that enslaved her. That said, a careful reader need not rely on the intent of her diction to infer her position toward her captors; her punctuation is quite telling by itself.
In the seventh and eighth lines, Phillis Wheatley provides an important contextual reminder: "Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train." At a glance, a reader might see this as further damning Wheatley as a voice that is not critical of chattel slavery; this quick reading might suggest that she acknowledges the inherent sin - and inferiority - of Negros, who are literally dark-skinned (black) and supposedly cursed by God just as Cain was. But the comma after Remember is a significant, telling piece of punctuation. Were it to be missing, her message on Negros would be intended for a Christian audience, as if to encourage Christians to have a compassionate view of Negros. The comma after Remember challenges this notion, however.
Wheatley's comma placement here makes "Remember" an introductory element, rather than "Remember Christians." This is a message intended for everyone, and she is encouraging her entire audience - not just Christians - to give it its due attention. By moving "Christians" to the message, she is equating ostensibly white Christians with Negros - in listing them together to form the subject of her sentence - saying that they are both "black as Cain," both marked by the same sin, and both capable of redemption.
“Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.”
Remember that this is not a poem written by a freed slave. She was not freed until after the release of the volume which includes this poem. For a slave to suggest that there is no moral or spiritual separation between blacks and whites is astounding, and for the same slave to have been freed at least in part on the merit of her authorship is nothing short of miraculous.
Poetry is often a medium treated by readers with trepidation, with a concern that it is too confusing or abstract, under an assumption that poetry is only appreciated by those that care to search for its meaning. Because poetry is often an attempt to capture human spirit and emotion, things that are intangible and complicated, this may be true at times. But there is certainly a value in the exercise in analysis. When Thomas Jefferson criticized Wheatley for not being a poet, he did so from a position of arrogance that blinded him to the complexity of not just her expression or verse, but her daring. In one small comma Phillis Wheatley engaged in a quiet rebellion against a culture that was simultaneously celebrating her novelty and holding her in chains. Only a poet could make fans from her opponents on that cultural battlefield.
“Phillis Wheatley’s place in the developing tradition of early transatlantic literature by people of African descent, and her role as the mother of African-American literature are now finally secure. The many ways in which she subtly and indirectly confronted the issues of racism, sexism, and slavery have been increasingly appreciated. ”
(Originally Posted Oct 6, 2015)