My Name is Phillis Wheatley

by Afua Cooper

  When I arrived at Scipio’s, he was there. John Peters. “You must be the celebrated Miss Wheatley,” he said, extending his hand. His shake was firm. I liked that. “John Peters at your service,” he said.

  I liked his voice. Well modulated and strong. His complexion was as dark as mine. He looked like the men of my country and was as tall as my father.

  Hours later, when Scipio showed me the portrait, I gasped. Was that me? This girl with such determination in her eyes? The portrait was exquisite.

  John Peters looked at the painting for a long time before he said, “This is a masterpiece.”

  By the time Scipio had finished my portrait, darkness had fallen. Scipio insisted that I stay for supper, but I declined due to the lateness of the hour. John Peters offered to walk me home. I was grateful for that and happy for his company. I liked his quiet but purposeful presence.

  And that was the beginning. Oftentimes, when Mr. Peters called on me, we would go walking. I told John what I had previously told only to Obour, of the loss of my family and country and the awful journey into slavery. I told him these sorrows one fine summer afternoon, as we strolled through the Common. He listened keenly, and his tears fell. “Our people have suffered so much, Phillis, but we must trust in the Almighty to see us through.”

  John was born in Massachusetts, his parents in New York, but he believed that his grandparents came from Africa. I told him that they must have come from Fouta because he looked so much like the men of my country. When I said that, he took my hand. I did not take it away. A sweet silence descended on us, and we walked in its embrace.

  It was Christmas 1777 when John asked me to marry him. A perfect day to say yes to a new life. And that was my answer: yes.

  Mr. Wheatley, my former master, was gravely ill, and I could not in good conscience leave him to marry John. I celebrated Christmas with John, Scipio and John Wheatley at the Wheatley residence. How I missed Aunt Betty and Prince!

  After John and Scipio left, my former master said, “John is reaching too much ahead of himself.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “He ought to be content with his station in life. Why does he want to be a lawyer?”

  I was dumbfounded. Finally, I found my voice. “Sir, you saw to it that I received an education, and you always told me to believe in myself. I do not understand your feelings about John.”

  “Your mistress … and later myself … saw that you had a fine mind. At first, we could not believe it because we were not used to …”

  “Don’t say it!” I screamed at him.

  “It was but an experiment, Phillis, if a successful one. Your mistress would think that you are too good for him.”

  For the first time in the seventeen years that I had lived with John Wheatley, we quarreled. I retired to my room with a migraine.

  In the new year, Mr. Wheatley became sicker and sicker, and on 3 March he met his maker, almost four years precisely after his wife and my former mistress had passed away. John Wheatley never completely recovered from the death of his wife. He had also lost his children, but in a different way. Nathaniel remained in England and married into a successful merchant family. Mary had married Reverend Lathrope and lived in Providence. And all the slaves had joined the Loyalists. The war made him insecure and vulnerable. He had seen his beloved Boston and Massachusetts, which used to be a bedrock of stability, sink into chaos, and he lost his grounding. He did not wish to be a part of the new order. But I had less sympathy for him than I used to have, since that night of our quarrel.

  A few days after John Wheatley’s death, his lawyer, Mr. Wainscoat, came to the house. Mary and her husband, two brothers of my former master, and a lawyer representing Nathaniel gathered in the Wheatley home to hear the will read. Mr. Wheatley left his business, his ship, the house and money to Nathaniel. Mary he also remembered.

  He left nothing to me. Not one penny, not even a plate. This man, who freely had taken my labor for all those years, left me not even a stale biscuit. Did he feel that he had given me enough by helping me to become a published and celebrated poet? By giving me my freedom? I had hoped for something from my former master to acknowledge all I had done for him. But that was not to be. Like the rest of the world, I must march on.

  With John Wheatley’s death, I was free to marry John Peters. I wrote to Obour Tanner.

  12 March 1778

  Boston

  Dear Obour:

  My friend, John Peters, whom I wrote you about, has asked me to marry him, and I have agreed. We will be married on 2 April. It would be my sincere pleasure if you would stand as my witness. I will pay for your passage from Providence. May you remain in good health and under God’s guidance.

  Your friend,

  Phillis

  Obour came, and the wedding took place at John’s house on Queen Street. Scipio Moorehead shook my hand and John’s and embraced us both. Many members of Boston’s free Black community came, as John was well known and I likewise.

  I moved out of the Wheatley home, not without difficulty. I had come to life in that place. I had been shown love and kindness by everyone within. I would not forget that. I stood by my window for the last time and looked at the scene below. So many times I had sat at my desk, poetry flowing from my mind. Now I saw soldiers marching. The beginning of a new order.

  John came by with a coach to fetch my things. I rode with him in silence. It seemed a thousand years since I had come to Massachusetts, and a thousand thoughts crowded my mind. The end of an old life; the beginning of a new one. I thought of the new poems I was writing. Poems about freedom, about slavery, about the Revolution. And about my feelings for John. I was now a married woman. Mrs. Phillis Peters. It sounded good in my heart and made me smile.

  Many of my friends and members of the Wheatleys’ extended family were concerned about my marrying John. They felt that, having been pampered and shielded from hard work, I ought not to enter a more difficult life. True, I was more used to handling a pen than a brush or broom, but I was my own woman now and had to make my life. Though he was not as wealthy as my former master, John was financially secure. His house, our house, was in one of Boston’s best neighborhoods, with such prominent neighbors as the great political leaders Josiah Quincy and John Adams. John had also procured for me two servants, one of my own race.

  “Phillis, I have been thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Do you have plans for a second book?”

  I laughed aloud.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No, not at all. I was thinking about the new poems I am composing,” I said. “You read my mind.”

  “Good, then we must get them published.”

  That he had read my mind made me hopeful for my life with him. I would like to have children. I would name a daughter Penda, or Susanna after my mistress. I felt the power surging in my mind. A thousand words crowded my head. My fingers itched. So many poems to write. On the slave ship, the woman in green had told me that I had survived for a reason. That I could not die. Did I live so I could become “the first Black person in America to publish a book,” as the newspapers described me? Did I live only to prove that the African had a fine mind? That the African could think and write?

  John’s presence was warm and solid. I leaned my head on his shoulder. A warm breeze from the east caressed us as we embarked on our journey. My heart was filled with gladness. The coach stopped in front of the house where I was to begin my new life as Phillis Peters. John jumped down and stretched his hand to me. “Come, Phillis,” he said. And I joined my hand with his and stepped from the coach.

  An Hymn to the Evening

  Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main

  The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain;

  Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing,

  Exhales the incense of the bl
ooming spring.

  Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,

  And through the air their mingled music floats.

  Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread!

  But the west glories in the deepest red:

  So may our breasts with ev’ry virtue glow,

  The living temples of our God below!…

  Phillis Peters, formerly Phillis Wheatley

  Boston, April 1778

  Epilogue

  During the early years of her marriage, Phillis produced another manuscript of poetry. As with her first book, however, no American publisher was willing to print it. Most of the poems in this second manuscript have disappeared over time.

  The Revolution ended in 1783. Although it brought about the independence of the American colonies from Britain, it did not end slavery or bring equal rights for free Black citizens. In supporting the Revolution, Phillis had envisioned a multiracial society in which everyone had the same rights and freedoms, but this was not to be. The post-Revolutionary period had no place for a Black woman who was intelligent, talented and educated.

  Phillis and John Peters had three children, all of whom died in infancy. In 1784 at around thirty-one years old, Phillis died in childbirth; the child also died. Phillis Wheatley Peters was mourned by her husband and friends, yet she had launched a poetic tradition that thousands would follow.

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