Phillis Wheatley On Being Brought From Africa To America Summary

To the literary world, Phillis Wheatley is recognized as the first black American poet (Gates 3). At the age of seven, she was ripped from her native land of Africa and sold into slavery. A man by the name of John Wheatley purchased her as a slave servant for his wife Susannah. Under the care of the Wheatley family, Phillis was taught how to read and write in English, as well as, study Greek and Latin. The benefit of this knowledge helped her to begin writing poetry that reflected her religious and classical New England upbringing (Odeh, 52). “On Being Brought from Africa to America” is a poem that blends themes of slavery, Christianity, and salvation, and although it is infrequent for Wheatley to write about being a slave, this poem addresses …show more content…
In the first line she writes, “Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land” (Wheatley, 267). She claims that it was “mercy” that brought her from Africa to America and lead to her Christianity. Although she was taken from her native homeland and enslaved, this created a situation in her life where “mercy” brought her to where she could, “understand that there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too.” Wheatley refers to her homeland as a “Pagan land.” Why is this? It could be for the same reason that in the second line she utilizes the word “benighted,” which implies darkness. Prior …show more content…
This is the first time within the poem that Wheatley addresses the issue of racism. Wheatley acknowledges that people view their “sable” or black race with condescension and see them as less than human, however states that it is only “some” and not everyone. She also uses the phrase “diabolical die” to refer to the color of their skin as being evil. This also relate to the phrase “black as Cain” in line seven. They both reference a belief that was widely held back then among white, slaveholding “Christians,” that the mark placed on Cain, in Genesis 4:15, was black skin, however the Bible does not state what the mark actually was. Nevertheless, those who believed it to be true used it to ease their conscience. In the same line that she uses the phrase “black as Cain,” Wheatley begins to logically conclude her poem. She writes “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain.”(Wheatley, 267) She speaks in an authoritative tone and addresses the three equally. This is important to know because she is equating black people with all other Christians, during a time when racial inequality was a social norm and whites did not consider blacks to be their equal. Wheatley is stating that Negros