Phillis Wheatley was born in 1753 in Africa. Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped and sold at a slave auction at age seven to a prosperous Boston family who educated her and treated her as a family member. Rescued from an otherwise hopeless situation by the sympathies of the Wheatley family, Phillis learned English with remarkable speed, and, although she never attended a formal school, she also learned Greek and Latin. It is clear that the Christian compassion …showed first 75 words of 283 total…

…showed last 75 words of 283 total…of injustice found in any of her poems is in the line "Some view our sable race with scornful eye" - it would be almost a hundred years before another black writer would drop the mask of convention and write openly about the African-American experience. Phillis Wheatley received her freedom and married a free black man in 1778 but, despite her skills, was never able to support her family. Although she died in complete poverty in 1784.