An Analysis Of Wheatley's On Being Brought From Africa To America

Much like how she needed white people to authenticate her authorship, in her poems “On Being Brought From Africa to America” and “To His Excellency General Washington”, Wheatley minimizes her own voice and talent to maintain jurisdiction over her work. In proclaiming her subservient position in her poetry, Wheatley takes agency of her voice. Without much choice, she consciously lowers herself in her writing so that the majority of people in her time might listen. In writing about her enslavement, Wheatley states, “’Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land, / Taught my benighted soul to understand” (“On Being” 764). The association of paganism with Africa portrays its inhabitants as primitive to Wheatley’s white, Christian contemporaries whom she addresses
In conjunction, these lines portray Wheatley’s gratitude for being taught the ways of Christianity in America and encourages her audience to recognize the capability of other people of color to do the same. Positing that people of color can understand the complexities of faith and move away from paganism, suggests to Wheatley’s readers that slaves have unexplored intellectual potential. By discounting her voice in devaluing her African origin, Wheatley allows her white audience to underestimate her, while proving her capability as an author and as a representative of her race.
Further, in her poem “To His Excellency General Washington”, Phillis Wheatley discusses the importance of obtaining the freedom of the colonies from Britain. Originally written as a direct correspondence to George Washington before the end of the