Why Is Phillis Wheatley So Important To America?

Phillis Wheatley was a black slave who was brought to America, particularly the Boston area, in 1761. Being a child prodigy, and under the recognition of her sympathetic masters, Wheatley was taught to read and write. Through her informal education, Wheatley began to read the Bible and other Latin authors and English poets. Christians of that time accepted as a strong, literate woman because they did not believe that slavery could coincide with the Christian life. This strong Christian influence in her life made a significant impact on the topics and overall themes of her works. Some critics say that Wheatley praises slavery because it brought her to America and therefore to Christianity. One of Wheatley’s first poems, on the death of Reverend
Scheick rightly recognizes that Wheatley appeals to both of her intended audiences of whites and black. According to Scheick, she is giving the white readers “argumentative and artistic proof” and the black readers “an example of how to appropriate biblical ground to self-empower their similar development of religious and cultural refinement” (Scheick, 138). What Scheick means here is Wheatley, who is a part of the Christian faith and believes that both blacks and whites are the same through God’s eyes, is appealing to the whites’ higher class by providing artistic proof, but also providing encouragement and empowerment to the black telling them to stand up and lead by her example to become a culturally and religiously refined person. The opportunities that her masters gave her were very generous and had a direct impact on the progress that she made throughout her life as a writer and a human being, so she wants to encourage the whites to do the same for other blacks and for her race to evolve into people of opportunity and change for the betterment of