Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) was bor in West Africa, most likely in present-day Gambia or Senegal. She was sold by a local chief to a visiting trader, who took her to Boston in the then British Colony of Massachusetts, on July 11, 1761, on a slave ship called The Philis. The vessel was owned by Timothy Pitch and captained by Peter Gwinn. On arrival in Boston, Phillis was bought by the wealthy Boston merchant and tailor ishn Wheatley as a slave for his wife Susanna. The Wheatleys named her Phillis after the ship that had transported her to North America, She was given their last name of wheatley, as was a common custom if any sumame was used for enslaved people. In 1767, the 15-year-old Phillis Wheatley published her first poem, *On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin," in the Newport Mercury it was the first poem published in the Colonies by a Black person. The Wheatleys lived on King Street, one of the sidest and most histore streets in Boston. in 1770 the Boston Massacre (known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street) took place in front of the Customs House, Phillis Wheatley is featured, along with Abigail Adams and Lucy Stone, in the Boston Women's Memorial, a 2003 sculpture on Commonwealth Avenue.