Literacy And Slavery In Revolutionary America

It was John Wheatley of Boston who, needing someone to assist his wife Susannah, purchased a 7 or 8 year old girl newly arrived from Senegambia, and took her home and named her Phillis. It was Young Phillis who would, in a very short time, begin to disprove the commonly held notion that Africans were incapable of learning, or displaying intelligence comparable to that of their European enslavers. John Wheatley himself had to testify: “Without any assistance from School Education, and by only what she was taught in the family, she, in sixteen months time from her arrival, attained the English language, to which she was an utter stranger before, to such a degree as to read any, the most difficult parts, of the Sacred Writings, to the great astonishment of all who heard her. “

The Wheatley family were themselves refined, educated and religious and so encouraged the talented Phillis to get an education. Phillis Wheatley would find herself doubly exceptional as both a Black and a female who would become one of the most highly educated young people in all of Boston. She was brought into contact with the leading Evangelical Christians of the day as well. It was very soon that her poetry, which lauded both King George III and Georege  Washington, caught  the attention of the revolutionary Patriots of the time: Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thom Paine, John Hancock and John Paul Jones, had all began paying attention to Wheatley’s writings.

Many Abolitionists of that day, who were eager to refute the idea that the inherent ignorance of Africans  excused dehumanizing them, were immediately drawn to the poetry and personage of the unique Miss Wheatley. Benjamin Rush, a Physician and Abolitionist in Philadelphia, praised her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral as examples of Phillis Wheatley’s “singular genius an accomplishments”. Her verses would soon become known in Britain as well, where she traveled with Young Master Nathaniel Wheatley, James’ son, in 1773. There were many whites who were opposed to the institution of slavery, especially among the Quakers in Pennsylvania. Anthony Benezet, a Quaker leader, actively supported anti-slavery and educated blacks. Benezet, who left his native France due to religious persecution, published pamphlets attacking slavery and the slave trade.

During the era of the American Revolution, many African Americans fought for the freedom of both themselves and their country. African Americans were just as motivated by a desire for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as those around them. Blacks of the times were not unaware of the “Natural Rights” philosophy of the Enlightenment. Many African Americans in New England were aware of the words on freedom which Thomas Jefferson had addressed to King George III. Blacks in New Hampshire wrote their own petition, stating: “Freedom is an inherent right of the human species, not to be surrendered, but by consent, for the sake of social life.” John Adams’ wife, Abigail, agreed – and even furthered the thought: “I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province; it always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”