by Afua Cooper
Once I had agreed to return to look after my mistress, the Wheatleys knew they were in my debt. I had made with them a silent and unwritten contract: If I returned to America, the Wheatleys would grant me my freedom.
Though I had been treated more like a favored servant than a slave, the fact remained that John and Susanna Wheatley owned me and, if they were to die, their children would inherit me. To be free. To be free. What did that really mean? My master was about to let me know the answer.
I sank to my knees in gratitude and kissed my master’s hands.
“Rise, my child. You have earned the right to be free. God knows our colonies are clamoring for their freedom from Britain. How can we nurture a more poisonous form of slavery?” My master, soon to be my former master, spoke these latter words almost to himself.
“Miss Phillis.” The voice of Mr. Wainscoat brought me back to the matter at hand. “The papers are drawn up. All you have to do is sign this certificate of manumission.”
And so it was that I was granted my freedom. I signed my American name, Phillis Wheatley, to the certificate, but it was Penda Wane who had been freed. Or had she?
My mother was dead and, likely, my father, little Chierno and the baby, too. What had happened to Amadi? I thought of my capture, kidnapping and the horrific journey on the slave ship. It had broken my health. To this day, my lungs are weak and I suffer from asthma. Nathaniel once told me that if I could forget these horrors, my asthma would go away. I believed him, but how could I forget such an ordeal?
However, in order to show my gratitude, I told my master that I would remain and look after my mistress. He had expected that, though he nodded mournfully. To experience my new state, when my mistress slept in the afternoon, I left her in the care of Aunt Betty and Clara and wandered to the bank of the river. I walked and walked and walked, and I did not feel the cold until I had to face the future: How would I look after myself once I left the Wheatleys?
CHAPTER TWELVE
My Books Arrive
The countess sent me my books! They came through Newport in November. The harbor master sent me a letter saying that the books were on their way, and they were delivered in Boston two days later. My master instructed Prince to fetch the cargo, but I jumped in the coach beside him. I was too excited to wait. Fifteen crates of books! I held one of the slim volumes in my hands, and my heart fluttered. My book. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. An engraving of my profile on the cover. The painting was commissioned by the countess from my friend, Scipio Moorehead. I turned to the first page and read the dedication: “To the Right Honourable the Countess of Huntingdon.” It was my mistress’s idea that I dedicate the book to the countess.
I felt the sun coursing through my veins, through my blood.
“Phillis, God bless you. The whole race blesses you.” Prince’s voice broke my reverie.
His face was filled with the light of his smile. Prince had been my friend from the day I walked into the Wheatley house, a trembling, sick and frightened girl. As I grew stronger, he showed me around Boston. He showed me the meadows where he picked dandelion greens for our cook. He withstood my mistress’s anger when she caught him talking to me. He said nothing when she raged at him after I sat with him at the front of the coach. The whole race blesses you. My book was not only for me but for Prince, Aunt Betty and Clara — and for the future.
I sent a crate of books to Obour Tanner in Providence with instructions on how to distribute them. Two crates had remained in Newport for sale there. I sent books to Concord, New Haven, Philadelphia and New York. My mistress, though ill, with my assistance wrote letters to her friends, relatives and acquaintances, urging them to buy my book. My former master instructed me to send a crate each to two merchant friends, one in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the other in Kingston, Jamaica. But the crate from Jamaica was returned: the government there had banned my book. The authorities said that it was subversive, that Blacks held there in slavery might rebel if they learned that one of their race had written a book!
One evening, after returning from my walk, I saw Prince with the carriage outside the Wheatley house. I gave him a warm hello. He handed me a letter.
Dear Miss Wheatley, let me be the first (though I am sure I’m not) to congratulate you on the publication of your book. I have bought a copy and have read it more than three times.
As an African myself, I take great pride in knowing that one of our race has uplifted the race in so high a manner.
When I am in Boston, may I have the pleasure of calling on you?
I look forward to your reply.
Your humble servant,
John Peters
This could only be the John Peters, the free Black man who owned a grocery store in Boston and was studying law with the solicitor John Deerhouse. I immediately wrote back, thanking Mr. Peters for his support and telling him his visit would please me greatly.
But another letter touched my heart even more. It came from a fellow Black poet, Jupiter Hammon of Long Island. He congratulated me, thanked me for my “gifts and talents” and “for uplifting the African race.” He enclosed a poem he had written in my honor.
Numerous invitations came for me. I gave more readings in the drawing rooms of Boston than ever before. Newspapers across the land reviewed my book favorably. “Brilliant verses from a Negro girl.” “A credit to American society and learning.” There was only one critical review, from the pen of a man who owned many slaves yet was quickly gaining a reputation as a revolutionary: Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Jefferson had nothing good to say about my poems. But let him be. It was not for me to convince him of my worth.
In the month that followed my receipt of the books, I received a letter from the countess. The booksellers of London had sold all my books and had undertaken a second printing! Books were also sold in Dublin and Belfast, in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The countess said that the London papers had reviewed my book favorably. In her letter, she enclosed a money order (of fifty pounds!) and a review from the famous French philosopher Monsieur Voltaire, who said that I wrote “good verses.”
In spite of my mistress’s illness, my life was sweet. Men doffed their hats to me in the streets. Black people, both slave and free, ran to shake my hand. Prince found the most delicious greens for Aunt Betty to cook for me. “So you can be strong,” he said to me. And for those months, my asthma disappeared completely.
As it turned out, my books arrived just in time. A few weeks later came the Boston Tea Party. The colonists had refused to let ships laden with “British” tea unload. They were incensed that they had to pay a duty on the tea and that the British East India Company had a monopoly and could run the colonial merchants out of business. They felt that Governor Hutchinson, one of my examiners, had insulted them, had no regard for them and was a traitor.
So on the evening of 16 December 1773, about forty men dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded the ships, smashed open the cases of tea and dumped it in the harbor. The governor and colonial officials were furious, and the incident was raised in Parliament. Britain decided to close the port. Angry mobs responded by storming Governor Hutchinson’s house, breaking his furniture and destroying his papers. As no ships could enter or leave the port of Boston, John Wheatley’s imports from the West Indies and Britain could not get in, and his exports could not leave either. But my books were safe. Thank God.
By the new year, it appeared that Susanna Wheatley would recover. She was able to take more food. Her skin glowed, and she breathed more easily. But it was all a deception. At the beginning of March, she took a turn for the worse. On the fourteenth day of the month, I bathed her, fed her soup, read the scriptures and prayed with her. After prayers, she said, “I’m going, Phillis. I feel my angel calling me. My body cannot live much longer.”
“Nonsense, Madam. You will be here for many more years.”
But fear gripped me as I said those empt
y words. I smoothed her pillow and held her hand. She slept, her breathing even and her face peaceful. I must have fallen asleep, and I woke up with a start. I felt cold. The room was chilly. Alarmed, I looked at my mistress. She opened her eyes ever so slightly.
“Phillis, call my dear husband and the entire household.” I could not hold back my tears. “Dear girl, don’t cry. Do as I ask.”
I yelled at Prince to get Reverend Cooper from next door, and we all gathered around. My mistress held my master’s hand and mine. Reverend Cooper prayed amid our weeping. He said that “Zion needs Susanna Wheatley more than Earth.”
My mistress spoke my name in a whisper.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“When I am gone, write no verses for me. No funeral songs, no elegies. I want to be remembered as a humble soul. Promise me this.”
But I could not speak for the lump in my throat.
“Promise,” she said again, as she squeezed my hand.
“Yes, ma’am, yes.”
Her final words were “Serve the Lord. Serve the Lord.” And then she died.
We buried her in the South End Church cemetery. All of Boston was at the funeral. Everyone had loved her. Her daughter, Mary, wailed beyond comfort. Nothing her husband did could console her. Her cries pierced my heart, and I patted her shoulder. Mary turned and said, “Poor us, Phillis, poor us. What shall we do now that Mother is gone? Phillis, you cannot know what it is to lose a mother.”
A loud roar filled my head. You cannot know what it is to lose a mother? Surely Mary could not have been thinking clearly. Surely grief must have dented her mind. I not know what it is to lose a mother? I had lost two mothers. Grief had made Mary cruel.
After the funeral I repaired to my room, bolted the door and told myself I’d stay there forever. But after just a few hours, I had an asthma attack. My lungs felt as if they were squeezed by iron hands, and for the next three days it appeared that I would join my mistress in Zion.
Aunt Betty nursed me back to life, but I did not want to live. “Leave me alone. I want to die, too.” Those words sounded so familiar. And then I remembered. I had said them over and over to the woman in green on the slave ship. She had told me that I could not die, that the ancestors would not allow me to die. I watched Aunt Betty’s lips and, as if in a dream, I heard her say the same thing. But I was beyond caring. She who had given me my life back had left me.
Susanna Wheatley’s death filled me with a loneliness that weighed on me like a giant stone. Loneliness was not new. It had been a part of me since I was dragged from Africa. But, over time, it had subsided and lodged itself in a small place inside me. Now it rose and threatened to crush me. I wished it would. I wanted to compose an elegy for my mistress, despite her admonitions, but the words refused to come. I, who had written elegies for many of Boston’s dead, was now struck mute on the passing of my mistress, the woman who gave me my voice.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Revolution
Boston was all aflame. British soldiers had waged a pitched battle with a bunch of revolutionary hotheads. Young Bostonians had thrown snowballs at the soldiers, who then fired into the crowd, killing five men. The first to die was Crispus Attucks, a man of mixed African and Indian ancestry. He became the first martyr of the Revolution. People called the shootings a massacre. I could hear the roar of the guns and the answering roar of the crowd. The Revolution had begun.
In September 1774, Boston came under British occupation. Many, including my master and I, fled the city. We lodged in Providence in the house of my master’s daughter, Mary. Amid the gloom was one bright spark — Obour Tanner.
“When the war ends — and we will have war for sure — if the Americans win, they will free their slaves. They talk too much about freedom for it not to be freedom for everyone!” Obour said.
“Britain could win,” I replied, “and if she does, I believe our freedom will be more secure.”
Obour looked at me as if my words were treasonous. “America will win!” she said excitedly.
“I hope so, because I chose to come back to America. I have cast my lot with her.”
My former master and I missed Boston. As well, he was worried about his house. “Anything could happen,” he said. I think he was worried that Prince and Rufus, and even Clara and Aunt Betty, left by themselves, might run off. So we returned to Boston.
All talk was about fighting Britain. The British army left Boston in 1775, and an army of Patriots, as the Americans called themselves, occupied the city. George Washington, a southern planter who owned more than two hundred slaves, was the head of the American army. Mr. Washington had fought in the Seven Years War against the French and the Indians. In April 1775, on Lexington Green, just a few miles outside of Boston, British troops traded fire with a Patriot militia. The war had begun.
John Wheatley’s world was falling apart. He had built his wealth on trade within the British Empire. The mother country had been good to him, and he was deeply loyal. I thought of the countess, my master and mistress and even Governor Hutchinson. Loyalists all, and each in their way responsible for who I had become. But, according to the Patriots, these people were enemies of America! And yet, I had written poems about the unfairness of the Stamp Act and other injustices endured by the colonists. When the Earl of Dartmouth arrived as the secretary of the colonies, I heralded him in verse and advised that he act fairly with us. Britain was the great mother lion, and we looked to her for protection. We, the colonies, were the cubs of the great lioness. But the lioness acted treacherously toward her cubs. When the cubs became strong, they challenged the mother. With each victory, their fear of her dissipated.
I loved Britain. But I understood the heart of the colonists, the striving to be free from tyranny and servitude. Words of the Declaration of Independence gave me hope. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” And that is why I threw in my lot with the Patriots.
Yet it was not blind support. George Washington had not emancipated his slaves, even as he shouted that Britain held America in chains. And did Thomas Jefferson think of the Black men he owned when he wrote, “All men are created equal”? Some slaveholders, seeing the contradiction, released their human chattel. I heard the talk in church; I read it in the papers. And my Black brethren, too, challenged their owners and clamored for their freedom. Twice that year the Sons of Africa presented petitions to the Massachusetts Assembly, demanding a general emancipation for all Africans in bondage in the colony. I felt it in my bones — freedom would come.
Yet the Patriots lost several key battles, and there were strict rationings. Soldiers visited Boston homes and took whatever food and supplies they found. When they found the kitchens empty, they ransacked the cellars. Two soldiers came to the Wheatley home, but when they discovered who I was, they engaged me in a discussion about literature and left without searching the house. I breathed a sigh of relief, for I had a whole side of roasted lamb hidden in the pantry.
We could not have any discussion about the war. The Patriots called dissenting opinion “unpatriotic,” and whoever uttered it was tarred and feathered or even killed. War raged around me, and another raged in my heart. I grieved as many of my friends, people who had supported my poetry, left for England, never to return. Yet I knew I could not go with them. John Wheatley had given me my freedom. That meant I had to choose my place in this new order.
Aunt Betty, Prince, Clara and Rufus joined the British Loyalist forces. The British promised freedom to any slaves who deserted their owners and joined them. The Patriot Army made no such promise. Thousands of enslaved Africans fled to the Loyalist Army. Still, I remained safely in the Wheatley house and looked after my former master.
George Washington had established the army headquarters in Cambridge, a few miles outside of Boston. A daring idea formed in my mind. I wrote to General Washington, enclosing a poem in his honor: “To His E
xcellency, General Washington.”
Proceed great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev’ry action let the goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! be thine.
He wrote back and invited me to visit him at his camp.
The general received me with warmth and hospitality. He praised my poetry, and I praised his courage and what he was doing for America. What I saw in his camp warmed my heart. Free Black men had joined the Patriots’ army, and I saw them in General Washington’s camp in uniform, some even holding rifles and bayonets. Black men defending the cause of the Patriots and, it is hoped, the cause of freedom. It had been argued that Africans do not make good soldiers, but here they were in the camp, even if most were laborers. And General Washington told me that the African soldiers were courageous fighters.
I returned to Boston more convinced that I must support the Patriots and use my energies and talents to battle for freedom. With this conviction, my loneliness began to lift.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
John Peters
It was while visiting Scipio Moorehead that I finally met John Peters. Scipio had painted the likeness of dozens of New England’s most prominent citizens. After Scipio painted the profile that graced my book, he wrote to say that he wanted to paint my full portrait. After some delay, to Mr. Moorehead’s I went. I dressed in a red damask gown with a low-cut bodice. Susanna Wheatley would have said that too much of my bosom showed. But I was my own woman now. Nor did I cover my hair, but left it free. My short locks curled on my head, as they had in Fouta, and I liked the effect.