Phyllis Wheatley

Phyllis Wheatley was kidnapped from Africa at the age of eight. She was brought to Boston in 1761, a sickly child only able to speak Senegalese. At the age of thirteen she wrote her first poem. In 1773 her first book of poems was published, the second volume of poetry published by a woman in America.

At the Boston slave market, Phyllis was purchased by John Wheatley, a tailor whose wife, impressed by the child's aptitude, taught her to speak, read, and write English. In a few years Phyllis had also learned geography, history, and Latin and had developed a liking for classical poets such as Horace and Virgil. Her first poem, a translation from the Latin of Ovid, so amazed the literary circles in Boston that they had it published.

In 1768 she wrote "To the King's Most Excellent Health," and in 1772 she composed a poem to her mistress, who was so moved that she freed Phyllis and sent her to England to regain her health.
With the London publication of her book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, her fame spread on both sides of the Atlantic, and she become a celebrity.