Phillis Wheatley
1753 – December 5, 1784), was an author who is
considered the first African American author
of a published book of poetry. Born in West Africa.
Phillis Wheatley, ‘To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth’.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unrepressed complain,
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t’ enslave the land.
Wheatley’s poems show, there is a long history of African American poets writing about slavery. The poem was written in 1860, on the eve of the American Civil War, and sees an abolitionist expressing sympathy for the slave’s plight:
Slavery, O Slavery! I cannot conceive
Why judges and magistrates do not relieve
My down-trodden people from under thy hand,
Restore them their freedom, and give them their land …