Background statement or the introduction:
She was taken as a slave girl from a land far away in Africa, a land faced with wars and brutality of slavery and slave trade through the ship into a land that was not known taken as an animal with no actual rights. To her masters, she was not better than any other animal. Tortured, stolen, tired, carried like a cargo through a ship, and having no hope of going back to her land Phillis Wheatley Peters, not her real names, found herself into slavery at an early age. As a slave girl, she went through pain, suffering, rape, hard labor, discrimination, and many atrocities that dehumanized her as a lady and a human. For her to emerge as a poet and achieve what she had was purely a miracle (Hunt, 2019).
Phillis has nobody to cry to, nothing to hold on to, no dream to have, not better than any other animal, used as a tool for doing hard labor, a tool to satisfy male ego and desires, she had to respond to the masters, to the master’s desires, to the masters’ wishes, to keep her head bowed and her self-esteem to herself. She was something like a human being but not a human being; she did not know how to read or write, she could not compose anything leave alone sing. The flogging, the terror, and the pain of slavery could not allow Phillis to become anything other than a slave in a foreign land where she served her masters.
Against all these, the masters sow something in her; slowly, they developed an interest in her not as a slave but as a person who had hidden potential. Her grasp of words and the efficiency that she developed communication made the masters want to tap that inside her, so they encouraged her to learn how to read and write.
The plight of a slave girl:
Phillis as a young girl of about seven years, was taken away from her land into slavery. Among the grown-ups, she was bundled into a cargo ship and had to face the problems of traveling in the sea as a slave from Africa to America, where her owners would be. Slavery was an act that regarded the blacks as any other animal. Slaves had owners and were subjected to hard labor with no pay from the owners (Hunt, 2019). Female slaves were used as sex toys to satisfy the masters and work in the kitchen and gardens. Phillis was amongst those put out for auctions, which many slaves were a better treatment than what they had gone through during the journey to the public auction. It is what Phillis went through.
Why Phillis being a poet is regarded as a miracle:
Phillis had no background in reading and writing; she was of African origin, a slave who did not know English. She could not write about her country or people, or their history or her home, brothers, and sisters. The writing or composition of a poem required enough time and understanding of what she was writing. Coming up with the image, the flow or coherence, and the poem’s rhythm required some little information on poetry or singing. The mind of a poet is usually free with the physical freedom to compose.
Born in 1754, a seven-year-old Phillis was auctioned and sold to Susannah and John Wheatley, a family with several slaves (Waldstreicher, 2017). From this family, Phillis developed into the first black woman to be published in the US and the second woman published in the US. The miracle was attributed to Africa, where the parents of Phillis were. She managed to know how to speak the host’s language within sixteen weeks in their home, and she could read the bible clearly within that time frame. She had shown a different side of African slaves that the slave masters knew. Susannah loved this little girl and taught her everything she could; hence Phillis received the Whiteman’s education commensurate with the Harvard education though she was still a slave girl. Her first poem, “To the University of Cambridge,” described her miracle as the first black poet in a foreign land of slavery.
The impacts on the assumption and thinking on slavery:
Phillis brought a new world to the African slaves and slaves as a whole. The slave owners, particularly her masters, were bewildered and realized something different and unique in her. Susannah looked at Phillis not as a slave but as a child who deserved education (Waldstreicher, 2017). There was a new feeling about slavery, and the masters started looking at slaves with a certain degree of respect. Phillis had scaled the ladder of education within a very short time. She was able to do that which only the educated would. Slavery had to be looked at again, and Phillis’s position had shown that slaves were humans that were equally capable of doing something better. It formed the foundation in which advocacy for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery started.
