Phyllis Wheatley & the Slave Stockholm Syndrome Stigma
By: Goddess Reaper
Tags: Black History, Poetry, Womanism, Black Feminism, Black Women

Phillis Wheatley, abducted from Gambia in childhood and sold into American slavery, was the first published Black American writer and one of the first American women writers, yet her name and work is left out of most conversations centering Black writers and even Black women writers. In Black feminist circles, when discussing literature, they will mention women such as Zora N. Hurston, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Octavia Butler — it is nearly impossible to find a Black feminist who lists Wheatley as one of her favorite writers, if her name is mentioned in the conversation at all. Phillis Wheatley’s work doesn’t resonate well with modern Black women for a number of reasons. In the 1960s and 1970s when Black studies was on the rise, Wheatley’s apparent praising of missionary Christianity and gratitude for slavery bringing her to America didn’t fit into the “strong Black cultural identity” aesthetic scholars and artists centered the movement around; so she is left out of these conversations because her poetry on the surface appears to condemn Blackness and Black culture and uphold white Christianity as the standard for humanity. The reasoning for this isn’t hard to understand; just read On Being Brought from AFRICA to AMERICA, written by Wheatley and published in 1768. On the surface, it appears as though she is thankful for slavery no matter how egregious because it saved her from being an uncivilized pagan. This controversial poem has a considerable amount of literature written on it, and this essay will summarize and compare two articles.

Uncovering Subversion in Phillis Wheatley’s Signature Poem: “On Being Brought from AFRICA to AMERICA” by Mary Catherine Loving analyzed each line of the poem and highlighted grammatical coding Wheatley used that they argue conveys abolitionist messages. In this essay, we are introduced to a new, hidden way of analyzing Black literature that acknowledges the censorship of Black art under the white gaze. In A Fiery Furnace and a Sugar Train: Metaphors that Challenge the Legacy of Phillis Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from AFRICA to AMERICA,” Mark Edelman Boren focuses on Wheatley’s position as a controversial literary icon and doesn’t necessarily make any arguments about her work but instead discusses the multitude of other literary scholars who have interpreted her work. In this article, the author doesn’t seem particularly convinced that Wheatley was an abolitionist or that she wasn’t, but he does seem to call for a closer read of her work so as to better understand her message. It is on this, the need for deeper interpretations of Wheatley’s literature, that both authors can agree on, so that she may find an appropriate role in the Black literary canon.

Loving breaks open the 8-line poem to uncover what truths it may hide beneath the surface. She focuses solely on the grammatical structure of the poem, repeatedly referencing Joshua Bradley’s A Brief, Practical System of Punctuation To Which are added Rules Respecting the Uses of Capitals, Etc. also Observation on English Versification, Etc. for the Use of Schools. She reveals to us that the capitalization in the title could serve to equate the two continents, Africa and America. Because those are the only two words in the title that are capitalized, the reader’s attention is immediately drawn to those two words. Perhaps the title isn’t only meant to convey Wheatley’s transportation from one place to another, but also the fundamental equality between those two places because the both of them received the same level of respect in the title. The five italicized words in the poem also paint another, much different story than the poem itself does; the words “Pagan,” “Saviour,” “Christians,” “Negroes,” and “Cain,” construct a narrative of a brotherly feud and betrayal with lethal consequences, almost as if the white race is betraying its brother, the Black race, under the guise of being its savior. Pagan, the first italicized word that appears in the first line of the poem, could possibly connote a satirical tone. It is evident from the structure of the poem that it is this word that should be closely emphasized; Loving mentions that the word “mercy” is not the one that is italicized in the first line for a reason — because it is not the prevailing sentiment. Loving also brings attention to the duplicity “benighted” carries, and how it is a euphemism for ignorant yet literally translate to “surrounded by darkness.” The darkness, argues Loving, is not her pre-Christian existence; it is her abduction from her homeland by slave traders. The emphasis on the word “Saviour” highlights the distinction from God himself, and Loving claims that this distinction is a satirical reference to white people’s god complex.

Boren’s approach is a bit more subjective and acknowledges Wheatley’s reputation throughout history and argues that her career was never about the actual poetry and more so about the cultural anomaly that is a Black slave creative. Wheatley was practically hailed as evidence that Black people are capable of creativity and intellectual achievements. In this way, she was one of the first examples of the representation of “Black Excellence,” and it is no great curiosity that the term is riddled with respectability politics and performance for the white gaze. White people, whose support was garnered by Phillis’ exploitative slaveholder Susanna Wheatley, were attracted to Wheatley’s poetry because she was an African and wrote in the infamous neoclassical style, and familiarizing yourself with her work became somewhat of a symbol of status and being well-rounded culturally. Her career seemed “harmless” to white people; she wasn’t spewing any radical rhetoric, and she was still only a woman after all. In fact, Boren tells us that, despite having a small supportive following, the majority of white people shrugged Wheatley off as some type of political prank played by a white abolitionist. However, as long as she did not appear to be a threat to white Christian cisheteropatriarchal values and instead seemed to be upholding it, she and her art were allowed to exist in a white world. This censorship has sculpted Black American art since its origin, as creating art requires a freedom that has never been afforded to members of the Black Diaspora.

Former president Thomas Jefferson’s opinion on Wheatley is probably the most representative of the common consensus: “Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. — Among the blacks misery is enough, God knows, but no poetry… Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only; not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phillis Wheatley; but it could not produce a poet.” Jefferson’s statement reinforces the belief that Black people are not artists because of an innate inability to translate complex human emotions and experiences into art like other (white) people can. Black people are expected to sit with their misery and make nothing of it. But creativity requires too much mental stamina, and so white people will never admit that Black art is valuable, touching, and genius. It will require coming to terms with the logical fallacy of the dehumanization of the Black race.