Phillis Wheatley was born in Senegal/Gambia,
West Africa in 1753. After being kidnapped from her home in West Africa when
she was seven or eight years old; a slave ship brought her to Boston in 1761.
John Wheatley, a prosperous tailor and his wife, Susanna, purchased the young
girl directly from the ship and named her Phillis Wheatley (Phillis was the
name of the ship that brought her to the New World). At the time of the
purchase, The Wheatleys’ had no clue of the talents she would soon show the
world. Phillis Wheatley became the first African American and one of the first
women to publish a book of poetry in the colonies in 1773.
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