One thing that is essential to understanding Phillis Wheatley’s poetry is that she was a black woman who grew up in America during the time of slavery. She was well aware of the injustices served both to women, and even more so, people of color. Yet she was also aware that her audience, and her publishers, were mostly white men. If she wanted her voice to be heard, she had to be very careful in her criticism of slavery. In this particular poem, there is clearly very careful word choice around her audience. She calls Africa a “pagan land,” and thanks the people who brought her over and taught her the ways of God. This would play into the idea of the “white man’s burden” that many believed in at the time, and make readers more willing to listen to her. She then goes on to suggest that if she was black and found redemption, others like her could as well. She makes a biblical allusion to Cain, showing that she was in fact knowledgeable about the bible in general and of the supposed “justification” for slavery. Wheatley was always fighting a battle to show that women and people of color could be just as clever as any white man, and to make an argument for the moral implications of slavery. If people of color could write poetry, the “highest form” of writing, how could they be mere beasts fit for enslavement? In her writing, she is able to in eight poignant lines make that very argument.
“On Being Brought From Africa to America”
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I think its really interesting to think about how restrained she must’ve been in writing her poetry– not only was she risking controversy, but she was risking punishment to herself if any white person didn’t appreciate her messages. She had to be extra clever in walking the line of being uncontroversial while still expressing profound perspective & opinion, AND she had to be smart about how to insert her own meaning while bound to the message that her audience wanted to hear. I do wonder if we will ever really know what opinions were truly hers and what opinions were just for the sake of avoiding controversy. It’s sad to think that writing, which was such a free platform for so many white men, could’ve just served as another form of constraint for her.
While it is sad that so much of Wheatley’s opinions were intentionally hidden, this aspect also allows modern readers to look at her works more closely in hopes of finding slight hints at what Wheatley wanted to express. While analyzing this poem, the Cain reference really stood out to me. I would say that its not preferable to be compared to Cain (who is known in the Christian world as one of the earliest defilers of the Lord), so it is perplexing why Wheatley compared her race to such a sinner. While it is possible that she did this to get in the good favors of white men, I looked into a different explanation. The two last lines almost contradict themselves — the first one criticizing her own race, and the second one dreaming of a reality in which black people can go to Heaven under the protection of God. In my opinion, this is a masterly crafted rebellion against the ideas that white men so passionately had about those of the “inferior race”. She recognizes that a large portion of the human population believes that black people are a sin and an abomination — and then follows that with saying that their fate “may be redefined”. While this may look to white men in that era like submission, it’s very possible that Wheatley used her slightly ambiguous meaning to offer her opinion that black people are more than worthy of redemption and eternal life in Heaven.
Though the poem is short, I am impressed by how sarcastic and aggressive the message is delivered. Wheatley’s writing is not something to scoff at because of how she uses language to convey her message and subvert the expectations of the White oppressors. She refers to biblical allusions and Christian beliefs to point out the hypocrisy of their argument. And though many slaves were unable to read, her language was eloquent enough that it seemed to be a call of arms against their oppressors. It’s seething frustration disguised as criticism, and that’s what makes it beautiful. The irony of the poem is further exemplified by how “civilized” she is by learning how to read and write at a time when slaves were seen as “beastly and barbaric.” She’s human, just like her white oppressors. Why should she and her fellow slaves be relegated to such lowly status when they were created in the image of God like her white oppressors were?