Phillis Wheatley: Quick Facts

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Facts

Born	c.1753 • Senegal?
Died	December 5, 1784 • Boston • Massachusetts
Notable Works	“An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of the Celebrated Divine…George Whitefield” • “Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley” • “On Being Brought from Africa to America” • “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral” • “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”

Photos and Videos

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley's “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”

Bronze statue of poet Phillis Wheatley seated with her chin resting on her hand beside a granite pedestal inscribed with her name, in Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Boston.

How did Phillis Wheatley become a poet?

Color illustrations of three women from the 18th century set against a white paper background, including a Black woman in a blue dress and white bonnet, a white woman loading a cannon, and a white woman holding a rifle. The text Daughters of the Revolution appears in capital letters.

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