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PHILLIS WHEATLEY (LETTER DATE 1774)

SOURCE: Wheatley, Phillis. "Letter to Samson Occom." In Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings, edited by William H. Robinson, p. 332. New York: Garland Publishing, 1984.

In the following letter written in 1774, Wheatley directly addresses the injustice of slavery in a way that she does not in her poetry. This letter was written shortly after the death of her mistress, when she had been freed for four months. Her recipient, Samson Occom, was a Native American preacher who, like Wheatley, was introduced in England as a Christian prodigy.

Reverend and honoured Sir,

I have this Day received your obliging kind Epistle, and am greatly satisfied with your Reasons respecting the negroes, and think highly reasonable what you offer in Vindication of their natural Rights: Those that invade them cannot be insensible that the divine Light is insensibly chasing away the thick...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Phillis Wheatley (Letter Date 1773)
   2. Phillis Wheatley (Letter Date 1774)
4. General Commentary
   1. M. A. Richmond (Essay Date 1974)
   2. Betsy Erkkila (Essay Date Fall 1987)
   3. Walt Nott (Essay Date Fall 1993)
5. Title Commentary
   1. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright

1. Feminism