1992 Mercury Sable Wagon

Admin | January 10, 2012 | Comments Off

1992 Mercury Sable Wagon

1992 Mercury Sable Wagon

Phillis Wheatley

The first African-American published female poet, Phillis Wheatley, helped jumpstart African-American literary, and particularly, African-American women’s literary, tradition. Critics of her work still debate whether her work sought social reform with its Christian and classical references, while criticizing white oppression, or if the writings, often abolitionist in nature, were advocating assimilation into the dominant white culture.

Her poetry professes the marginalized point-of-view of a black female, and reflects the era in which she was writing. She became a sensation in Boston in the 1760s during a time of political and economic unrest with the British crown, and continued to publish throughout the Revolutionary War in support of freedom from tyranny.

Born in Africa in the early 1750s, possibly 1753, Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1761 and brought to Boston to be sold on the slave market. Bought by the prominent Wheatley family, she became a part of the family; the Wheatleys educated her, and she demonstrated her literary talents early on.