As the first American slave and woman of African descent to have her work published, poet Phillis Wheatley is June’s #MOTM. Captured from West Africa at the age of 7, the woman to become Phillis Wheatley was purchased by John Wheatley as a personal servant for his wife. While doing household work, Phillis Wheatley was taught how to read and write. Regardless of her fame across the Atlantic, the colonists were unwilling to support literature by an African. She eventually turned to London to finally publish “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral” in 1773. |