Wheatley's Poem Annotations

First, we will discuss the message conveyed in the first four lines of Wheatley’s poem. The first line of her poem describes how mercy brought her from her pagan land. She used the word pagan to describe the difference between Africa and America, since Africa was godless and America were not. The author uses the word “mercy” but it is unclear if she means mercy of the white colonists or the mercy of God. However, it was mercy nonetheless that taught her pagan soul to learn about a God and a savior. In the third line, she discusses a God, and a savior. Since she already mentioned God, the reader can assume Wheatley was talking about Jesus when she mentioned savior. This is an important part of her poem because Jesus suffered and then rose from