John Wheatley Comments

I am John Wheatley, Bostonian merchant and tailor by trade, and I am here to introduce to you Phillis, our servant-for-life and brilliant poet. She is a Godsend to us: a genius with learning and language.

My wife, Susanna, purchased Phillis at Boston Harbor.
At only seven years old she was an anniversary gift from me. Phillis had just arrived on the slave ship, ‘THE PHILLIS, ' from Senegambia, a region of West Africa in July,1761. She came alone without family on her long passage.
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