In 1754 the colonial government found it necessary to establish a system of taxation. Gov. Shirley was required to inform the House of Representatives as to the different kinds of taxable property. And from a clause in his message, Nov. 19, 1754, on the one hundred and nineteenth page of the Journal, we infer two things; viz., that slaves were chattels or real estate, and, therefore, taxable. The governor says, "There is one part of the Estate, viz., the Negro slaves, which I am at a loss how to come at the knowledge of, without your assistance." In accordance with the request for assistance on this matter, the Legislature instructed the assessors of each town and district within the colony to secure a correct list of all Negro slaves, male and female, from sixteen years old and upwards, to be deposited in the office of the secretary of state.[307] The result of this enumeration was rather surprising; as it fixed the Negro population at 4,489,—quite an increase over the last enumeration. Again, in 1764-65, another census of the Negroes was taken; and they were found to be 5,779.
Here, as in Virginia, an impost tax was imposed upon all Negro slaves imported into the colony. We will quote section 3 of the Act of October, 1705, requiring duty upon imported Negroes; because many are disposed to discredit some historical statements about slavery in Massachusetts.
"Sect. 3. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that from and after the first day of May, in the year one thousand seven hundred and six, every master of ship or vessel, merchant or other person, importing or bringing into this province any negroe or negroes, male or female, of what age soever, shall enter their number, names and sex in the impost office; and the master shall insert the same in the manifest of his lading, and shall pay to the commissioner and receiver of the impost, four pounds per head for every such negro, male or female; and as well the master, as the ship or vessel wherein they are brought, shall be security for payment of the said duty; and both or either of them shall stand charged in the law therefor to the commissioner, who may deny to grant a clearing for such ship or vessel, until payment be made, or may recover the same of the master, at the commissioner's election, by action of debt, bill, plaint or information in any of her majesty's courts of record within this province."[308]
A fine of eight pounds was imposed upon any person refusing or neglecting to make a proper entry of each slave imported, in the "Impost Office." If a Negro died within six weeks after his arrival, a drawback was allowed. If any slave was sold again into another Province or plantation within a year after his arrival, a drawback was allowed to the person who paid the impost duty. A subsequent and more stringent law shows that there was no desire to abate the traffic. In August, 1712, a law was passed "prohibiting the importation or bringing into the province any Indian servants or slaves;"[309] but it was only intended as a check upon the introduction of the Tuscaroras and other "revengeful" Indians from South Carolina.[310] Desperate Indians and insubordinate Negroes were the occasion of grave fears on the part of the colonists.[311] Many Indians had been cruelly dealt with in war; in peace, enslaved and wronged beyond their power of endurance. Their stoical nature led them to the performance of desperate deeds. There is kinship in suffering. There is an unspoken language in sorrow that binds hearts in the indissoluble fellowship of resolve. Whatever natural and national differences existed between the Indian and the Negro—one from the bleak coasts of New England, the other from the tropical coast of Guinea—were lost in the commonality of degradation and interest. The more heroic spirits of both races began to grow restive under the yoke. The colonists were not slow to observe this, and hence this law was to act as a restraint upon and against "their rebellion and hostilities." And the reader should understand that it was not an anti-slavery measure. It was not "hostile to slavery" as a system: it was but the precaution of a guilty and ever-gnawing public conscience.
Slavery grew. There was no legal obstacle in its way. It had the sanction of the law, as we have already shown, and what was better still, the sympathy of public sentiment. The traffic in slaves appears to have been more an object in Boston than at any period before or since. For a time dealers had no hesitation in advertising them for sale in their own names. At length a very few who advertised would refer purchasers to "inquire of the printer, and know further."[312] This was in 1727, fifteen years after the afore-mentioned Act became a law, and which many apologists would interpret as a specific and direct prohibition against slavery; but there is no reason for such a perversion of so plain an Act.
Slavery in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, in self-defence had to claim as one of its necessary and fundamental principles, that the slave was either naturally inferior to the other races, or that, by some fundamentally inherent law in the institution itself, the master was justified in placing the lowest possible estimate upon his slave property. "Property" implied absolute control over the thing possessed. It carried in its broad meaning the awful fact, not alone of ownership, but of the supremacy of the will of the owner. Mr. Addison says,—
"What color of excuse can there be for the contempt with which we treat this part of our species, that we should not put them upon the common foot of humanity, that we should only set an insignificant fine upon the man who murders them; nay, that we should, as much as in us lies, cut them off from the prospect of happiness in another world, as well as in this, and deny them that which we look upon as the proper means for obtaining it?"[313]
None whatever! And yet the Puritans put the Negro slaves in their colony on a level with "horses and hogs." Let the intelligent American of to-day read the following remarkable note from Judge Sewall's diary, and then confess that facts are stranger than fiction.
"1716. I essayed June 22, to prevent Indians and Negroes being rated with Horses and Hogs; but could not prevail. Col. Thaxter bro't it back, and gave as a reason of yr Nonagreement, They were just going to make a new valuation."[314]
It had been sent to the deputies, and was by them rejected, and then returned to the judge by Col. Thaxter. The House was "just going to make a New Valuation" of the property in the colony, and hence did not care to exclude slaves from the list of chattels,[315] in which they had always been placed.
"In 1718, all Indian, Negro, and Mulatto servants for life were estimated as other Personal Estate—viz.: Each male servant for life above fourteen years of age, at fifteen pounds value; each female servant for life, above fourteen years of age, at ten pounds value. The assessor might make abatement for cause of age or infirmity. Indian, Negro, and Mulatto Male servants for a term of years were to be numbered and rated as other Polls, and not as Personal Estate. In 1726, the assessors were required to estimate Indian, Negro, and Mulatto servants proportionably as other Personal Estate, according to their sound judgment and discretion. In 1727, the rule of 1718 was restored, but during one year only, for in 1728 the law was the same as that of 1726; and so it probably remained, including all such servants, as well for term of years as for life, in the ratable estates. We have seen the supply-bills for 1736, 1738, 1739, and 1740, in which this feature is the same.
"And thus they continued to be rated with horses, oxen, cows, goats, sheep, and swine, until after the commencement of the War of the Revolution.[316]
On the 22d of April, 1728, the following notice appeared in a Boston newspaper:—
"Two very likely Negro girls. Enquire two doors from the Brick Meetinghouse in Middle-street. At which place is to be sold women's stays, children's good callamanco stiffened-boddy'd coats, and childrens' stays of all sorts, and women's hoop-coats; all at very reasonable rates."[317]
So the "likely Negro girls" were mixed up in the sale of "women's stays" and "hoop-coats"! It was bad enough to "rate Negroes with Horses and Hogs," but to sell them with second-hand clothing was an incident in which is to be seen the low depth to which slavery had carried the Negro by its cruel weight. A human being could be sold like a cast-off garment, and pass without a bill of sale.[318] The announcement that a "likely Negro woman about nineteen years and a child about six months of age to be sold together or apart"[319] did not shock the Christian sensibilities of the people of Massachusetts. A babe six months old could be torn from the withered and famishing bosom of the young mother, and sold with other articles of merchandise. How bitter and how cruel was such a separation, mothers[320] only can know; and how completely lost a community and government are that regard with complacency a hardship so diabolical, the Christians of America must be able to judge.
The Church has done many cruel things in the name of Christianity. In the dark ages it filled the minds of its disciples with fear, and their bodies with the pains of penance. It burned Michael Servetus, and it strangled the scientific opinions of Galileo. And in stalwart old Massachusetts it thought it was doing God's service in denying the Negro slave the right of Christian baptism."
"The famous French Code Noir of 1685 obliged every planter to have his Negroes baptized, and properly instructed in the doctrines and duties of Christianity. Nor was this the only important and humane provision of that celebrated statute, to which we may seek in vain for any parallel in British Colonial legislation."[321]
On the 25th of October, 1727, Matthias Plant[322] wrote, in answer to certain questions put to him by "the secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel," as follows:—
"6. Negro slaves, one of them is desirous of baptism, but denied by her master, a woman of wonderful sense, and prudent in matters, of equal knowledge in Religion with most of her sex, far exceeding any of her own nation that ever yet I heard of."[323]
It was nothing to her master that she was "desirous of baptism," "of wonderful sense," "prudent in matters," and "of equal knowledge in religion with most of her sex!" She was a Negro slave, and as such was denied the blessings of the Christian Church.
"The system of personal servitude was fast disappearing from Western Europe, where the idea had obtained that it was inconsistent with Christian duty for Christians to hold Christians as slaves. But this charity did not extend to heathen and infidels. The same system of morality which held the possessions of unbelievers as lawful spoils of war, delivered over their persons also to the condition of servitude. Hence, in America, the slavery of the Indians, and presently of Negroes, whom experience proved to be much more capable of enduring the hardships of that condition."[324]
And those who were so fortunate as to secure baptism were not freed thereby.[325] In Massachusetts no Negro ever had the courage to seek his freedom through this door, and, therefore, there was no necessity for legislation there to define the question, but in the Southern colonies the law declared that baptism did not secure the liberty of the subject. As early as 1631 a law was passed admitting no man to the rights of "freemen" who was not a member of some church within the limits of the jurisdiction of the colony.[326] The blessings of a "freeman" were reserved for church-members only. Negroes were not admitted to the church, and, therefore, were denied the rights of a freeman.[327] Even the mother country had no bowels of compassion for the Negro. In 1677 the English courts held that a Negro slave was property.
"That, being usually bought and sold among merchants as merchandise, and also being infidels, there might be a property in them sufficient to maintain trover."[328]
So as "infidels" the Negro slaves of Massachusetts were deprived of rights and duties belonging to a member of the Church and State.
"Zealous for religion as the colonists were, very little effort was made to convert the Negroes, owing partly, at least, to a prevalent opinion that neither Christian brotherhood nor the law of England would justify the holding Christians as slaves. Nor could repeated colonial enactments to the contrary entirely root out this idea, for it was not supposed that a colonial statute could set aside the law of England."[329]
But the deeper reason the colonists had for excluding slaves from baptism, and hence citizenship, was twofold; viz., to keep in harmony with the Mosaic code in reference to "strangers" and "Gentiles," and to keep the door of the Church shut in the face of the slave; because to open it to him was to emancipate him in course of time. Religious and secular knowledge were not favorable to slavery. The colonists turned to the narrow, national spirit of the Old Testament, rather than to the broad and catholic spirit of the New Testament, for authority to withhold the mercies of the Christian religion from the Negro slaves in their midst.
The rigorous system of domestic slavery established in the colony of Massachusetts bore its bitter fruit in due season. It was impossible to exclude the slaves from the privileges of the Church and State without inflicting a moral injury upon the holy marriage relation. In the contemplation of the law the slave was a chattel, an article of merchandise. The custom of separating parent and child, husband and wife, was very clear proof that the marriage relation was either positively ignored by the institution of slavery, or grossly violated under the slightest pretext. All well-organized society or government rests upon this sacred relation. But slavery, with lecherous grasp and avaricious greed, trailed the immaculate robes of marriage in the moral filth of the traffic in human beings. True, there never was any prohibition against the marriage of one slave to another slave,—for they tried to breed slaves in Massachusetts!—but there never was any law encouraging the lawful union of slaves until after the Revolutionary War, in 1786. We rather infer from the following in the Act of October, 1705, that the marriage relation among slaves had been left entirely to the caprices of the master.
"And no master shall unreasonably deny marriage to his Negro with one of the same nation; any law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding."[330]
We have not been able to discover "any law" positively prohibiting marriage among slaves; but there was a custom denying marriage to the Negro, that at length received the weight of positive law. Mr. Palfrey says,—
"From the reverence entertained by the fathers of New England for the nuptial tie, it is safe to infer that slave husbands and wives were never separated."[331]
We have searched faithfully to find the slightest justification for this inference of Mr. Palfrey, but have not found it. There is not a line in any newspaper of the colony, until 1710, that indicates the concern of the people in the lawful union of slaves. And there was no legislation upon the subject until 1786, when an "Act for the orderly Solemnization of Marriage" passed. That Negro slaves were united in marriage, there is abundant evidence, but not many in this period. It was almost a useless ceremony when "the customs and usages" of slavery separated them at the convenience of the owner. The master's power over his slaves was almost absolute. If he wanted to sell the children and keep the parents, his decision was not subject to any court of law. It was final. If he wanted to sell the wife of his slave man into the rice-fields of the Carolinas or into the West India Islands, the tears of the husband only exasperated the master. "The fathers of New England" had no reverence for the "nuptial tie" among their slaves, and, therefore, tore slave families asunder without the least compunction of conscience. "Negro children were considered an incumbrance in a family, and, when weaned, were given away like puppies," says the famous Dr. Belknap. But after the Act of 1705; "their banns were published like those of white persons;" and public sentiment began to undergo a change on the subject. The following Negro marriage was prepared by the Rev. Samuel Phillips of Andover. His ministry did not commence until 1710; and, therefore, this marriage was prepared subsequent to that date. He realized the need of something, and acted accordingly.
"You, Bob, do now, in ye Presence of God and these Witnesses, Take Sally to be your wife;
"Promising, that so far as shall be consistent with ye Relation which you now Sustain as a servant, you will Perform ye Part of an Husband towards her: And in particular, as you shall have ye Opportunity & Ability, you will take proper Care of her in Sickness and Health, in Prosperity & Adversity;
"And that you will be True & Faithful to her, and will Cleave to her only, so long as God, in his Providence, shall continue your and her abode in Such Place (or Places) as that you can conveniently come together.—Do You thus Promise?
"You, Sally, do now, in ye Presence of God, and these Witnesses, Take Bob to be your Husband;
"Promising, that so far as your present Relation as a Servant shall admit, you will Perform the Part of a Wife towards him: and in particular,
"You Promise that you will Love him; And that as you shall have the Opportunity & Ability, you will take a proper Care of him in Sickness and Health; in Prosperity and Adversity:
"And you will cleave to him only, so long as God, in his Providence, shall continue his & your Abode in such Place (or Places) as that you can come together.—Do you thus Promise? I then, agreeable to your Request, and with ye Consent of your Masters & Mistresses, do Declare that you have License given you to be conversant and familiar together as Husband and Wife, so long as God shall continue your Places of Abode as aforesaid; And so long as you Shall behave yourselves as it becometh servants to doe:
"For you must both of you bear in mind that you remain still, as really and truly as ever, your Master's Property, and therefore it will be justly expected, both by God and Man, that you behave and conduct yourselves as Obedient and faithful Servants towards your respective Masters & Mistresses for the Time being:
"And finally, I exhort and Charge you to beware lest you give place to the Devil, so as to take occasion from the license now given you, to be lifted up with Pride, and thereby fall under the Displeasure, not of Man only, but of God also; for it is written, that God resisteth the Proud but giveth Grace to the humble.
"I shall now conclude with Prayer for you, that you may become good Christians, and that you may be enabled to conduct as such; and in particular, that you may have Grace to behave suitably towards each Other, as also dutifully towards your Masters & Mistresses, Not with Eye Service as Men pleasers, ye Servants of Christ doing ye Will of God from ye heart, &c.
Where a likely Negro woman was courted by the slave of another owner, and wanted to marry, she was sold, as a matter of humanity, "with her wearing apparel" to the owner of the man. "A Bill of Sale of a Negro Woman Servant in Boston in 1724, recites that 'Whereas Scipio, of Boston aforesaid, Free Negro Man and Laborer, proposes Marriage to Margaret, the Negro Woman Servant of the said Dorcas Marshall [a Widow Lady of Boston]: Now to the Intent that the said Intended Marriage may take Effect, and that the said Scipio may Enjoy the said Margaret without any Interruption,' etc., she is duly sold, with her apparel, for Fifty Pounds."[333] Within the next twenty years the Governor and his Council found public opinion so modified on the question of marriage among the blacks, that they granted a Negro a divorce on account of his wife's adultery with a white man. But in Quincy's Reports, page 30, note, quoted by Dr. Moore, in 1758 the following rather loose decision is recorded: that the child of a female slave never married according to any of the forms prescribed by the laws of this land, by another slave, who "had kept her company with her master's consent," was not a bastard.
The Act of 1705 forbade any "christian" from marrying a Negro, and imposed a fine of fifty pounds upon any clergyman who should join a Negro and "christian" in marriage. It stood as the law of the Commonwealth until 1843, when it was repealed by an "Act relating to Marriage between Individuals of Certain Races."
As to the political rights of the Negro, it should be borne in mind, that, as he was excluded from the right of Christian baptism, hence from the Church; and as "only church-members enjoyed the rights of freemen, it is clear that the Negro was not admitted to the exercise of the duties of a freeman.[334] Admitting that there were instances where Negroes received the rite of baptism, it was so well understood as not entitling them to freedom or political rights, that it was never questioned during this entire period. Free Negroes were but little better off than the slaves. While they might be regarded as owning their own labor, political rights and ecclesiastical privileges were withheld from them.
"They became the objects of a suspicious legislation, which deprived them of most of the rights of freemen, and reduced them to a social position very similar, in many respects, to that which inveterate prejudice in many parts of Europe has fixed upon the Jews."
Though nominally free, they did not come under the head of "Christians." Neither freedom, nor baptism in the Church, could free them from the race-malice of the whites, that followed them like the fleet-footed "Furies." There were special regulations for free Negroes. The Act of 1703, forbidding slaves from being out at night after the hour of nine o'clock, extended to free Negroes.[335] In 1707 an Act was passed "regulating of free negroes."[336] It recites that "free negroes and mulattos, able of body, and fit for labor, who are not charged with trainings, watches, and other services,"[337] shall perform service equivalent to militia training. They were under the charge of the officer in command of the military company belonging to the district where they resided. They did fatigue-duty. And the only time, that, by law, the Negro was admitted to the trainings, was between 1652 and 1656. But there is no evidence that the Negroes took advantage of the law. Public sentiment is more potent than law. In May, 1656, the law of 1652, admitting Negroes to the trainings, was repealed.
"For the better ordering and settling of severall cases in the military companyes within this jurisdiction, which, upon experience, are found either wanting or inconvenient, it is ordered and declared by this Court and the authoritie thereof, that henceforth no negroes or Indians, although servants to the English, shal be armed or permitted to trayne, and yt no other person shall be exempted from trayning but such as some law doth priveledge."[338]
And Gov. Bradstreet, in his report to the "Committee for Trade," made in May, 1680, says,—
"We account all generally from Sixteen to Sixty that are healthfull and strong bodys, both House-holders and Servants fit to beare Armes, except Negroes and slaves, whom wee arme not."[339]
The law of 1707—which is the merest copy of the Virginia law on the same subject—requires free Negroes to answer fire-alarms with the company belonging to their respective precincts. They were not allowed to entertain slave friends at their houses, without the permission of the owner of the slaves. To all prohibitions there was affixed severe fines in large sums of money. In case of a failure to pay these fines, the delinquent was sent to the House of Correction; where, under severe discipline, he was constrained to work out his fine at the rate of one shilling per day! If a Negro "presume to smite or strike any person of the English, or other Christian nation," he was publicly flogged by the justice before whom tried, at the discretion of that officer.
During this period the social condition of the Negroes, bond and free, was very deplorable. The early records of the town of Boston preserve the fact that one Thomas Deane, in the year 1661, was prohibited from employing a Negro in the manufacture of hoops, under a penalty of twenty shillings; for what reason is not stated.[340] No churches or schools, no books or teachers, they were left to the gloom and vain imaginations of their own fettered intellects. John Eliot "had long lamented it with a Bleeding and Burning Passion, that the English used their Negroes but as their Horses or their Oxen, and that so little care was taken about their immortal souls; he looked upon it as a Prodigy, that any wearing the Name of Christians should so much have the Heart of Devils in them, as to prevent and hinder the Instruction of the poor Blackamores, and confine the souls of their miserable Slaves to a Destroying Ignorance, merely for fear of thereby losing the Benefit of their Vassalage; but now he made a motion to the English within two or three Miles of him, that at such a time and place they would send their Negroes once a week unto him: For he would then Catechise them, and Enlighten them, to the utmost of his power in things of their Everlasting Peace; however, he did not live to make much progress in this undertaking."[341] The few faint voices of encouragement, that once in a great while reached them from the pulpit[342] and forum, were as strange music, mellowed and sweetened by the distance. The free and slave Negroes were separated by law, were not allowed to communicate together to any great extent. They were not allowed in numbers greater than three, and then, if not in the service of some white person, were liable to be arrested, and sent to the House of Correction.
"The slave was the property of his master as much as his ox or his horse; he had no civil rights but that of protection from cruelty; he could acquire no property nor dispose of any[343] without the consent of his master.... We think he had not the capacity to communicate a civil relation to his children, which he did not enjoy himself, except as the property of his master."[344]
With but small means the free Negroes of the colony were unable to secure many comforts in their homes. They were hated and dreaded more than their brethren in bondage. They could judge, by contrast, of the abasing influences of slavery. They were only nominally free; because they were taxed[345] without representation,—had no voice in the colonial government.
But, notwithstanding the obscure and neglected condition of the free Negroes, some of them by their industry, frugality, and aptitude won a place in the confidence and esteem of the more humane of the white population. Owning their own time, many of the free Negroes applied themselves to the acquisition of knowledge. Phillis Wheatley, though nominally a slave for some years, stood at the head of the intellectual Negroes of this period. She was brought from Africa to the Boston slave-market, where, in 1761, she was purchased by a benevolent white lady by the name of Mrs. John Wheatley. She was naked, save a piece of dirty carpet about her loins, was delicate of constitution, and much fatigued from a rough sea-voyage. Touched by her modest demeanor and intelligent countenance, Mrs. Wheatley chose her from a large company of slaves. It was her intention to teach her the duties of an ordinary domestic; but clean clothing and wholesome diet effected such a radical change in the child for the better, that Mrs. Wheatley changed her plans, and began to give her private instruction. Eager for learning, apt in acquiring, though only eight years old, she greatly surprised and pleased her mistress. Placed under the instruction of Mrs. Wheatley's daughter, Phillis learned the English language sufficiently well as to be able to read the most difficult portions of the Bible with ease and accuracy. This she accomplished in less than a year and a half. She readily mastered the art of writing; and within four years from the time she landed in the slave-market in Boston, she was able to carry on an extensive correspondence on a variety of topics.
Her ripening intellectual faculties attracted the attention of the refined and educated people of Boston, many of whom sought her society at the home of the Wheatleys. It should be remembered, that this period did not witness general culture among the masses of white people, and certainly no facilities for the education of Negroes. And yet some cultivated white persons gave Phillis encouragement, loaned her books, and called her out on matters of a literary character. Having acquired the principles of an English education, she turned her attention to the study of the Latin language,[346] and was able to do well in it. Encouraged by her success, she translated one of Ovid's tales. The translation was considered so admirable that it was published in Boston by some of her friends. On reaching England it was republished, and called forth the praise of many of the reviews.
Her manners were modest and refined. Her nature was sensitive and affectionate. She early gave signs of a deep spiritual experience,[347] which gave tone and character to all her efforts in composition and poetry. There was a charming vein of gratitude in all her private conversations and public utterances, which her owners did not fail to recognize and appreciate. Her only distinct recollection of her native home was, that every morning early her mother poured out water before the rising sun. Her growing intelligence and keen appreciation of the blessings of civilization overreached mere animal grief at the separation from her mother. And as she knew more of the word of God, she became more deeply interested in the condition of her race.
At the age of twenty her master emancipated her. Naturally delicate, the severe climate of New England, and her constant application to study, began to show on her health. Her friend and mother, for such she proved herself to be, Mrs. Wheatley, solicitous about her health, called in eminent medical counsel, who prescribed a sea-voyage. A son of Mrs. Wheatley was about to visit England on mercantile business, and therefore took Phillis with him. For the previous six years she had cultivated her taste for poetry; and, at this time, her reputation was quite well established. She had corresponded with persons in England in social circles, and was not a stranger to the English. She was heartily welcomed by the leaders of the society of the British metropolis, and treated with great consideration. Under all the trying circumstances of high social life, among the nobility and rarest literary genius of London, this redeemed child of the desert, coupled to a beautiful modesty the extraordinary powers of an incomparable conversationalist. She carried London by storm. Thoughtful people praised her; titled people dined her; and the press extolled the name of Phillis Wheatley, the African poetess.
Prevailed upon by admiring friends, in 1773[348] she gave her poems to the world. They were published in London in a small octavo volume of about one hundred and twenty pages, comprising thirty-nine pieces. It was dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon, with a picture of the poetess, and a letter of recommendation signed by the governor and lieutenant-governor, with many other "respectable citizens of Boston."
TO THE PUBLIC.
As it has been repeatedly suggested to the publisher, by persons who have seen the manuscript, that numbers would be ready to suspect they were not really the writings of Phillis, he has procured the following attestation, from the most respectable characters in Boston, that none might have the least ground for disputing their Original.
We, whose Names are under-written, do assure the World, that the Poems specified in the following page were (as we verily believe) written by Phillis, a young Negro Girl, who was, but a few Years since, brought, an uncultivated Barbarian, from Africa, and has ever since been, and now is, under the disadvantage of serving as a Slave in a family in this town. She has been examined by some of the best judges, and is thought qualified to write them.
Hon. Thomas Hubbard, | Rev. Charles Chauncy,
Hon. John Erving, | Rev. Mather Byles,
Hon. James Pitts, | Rev. Ed Pemberton,
Hon. Harrison Gray, | Rev. Andrew Elliot,
Hon. James Bowdoin, | Rev. Samuel Cooper,
John Hancock, Esq. | Rev. Samuel Mather,
Joseph Green, Esq. | Rev. John Moorhead,
Richard Cary, Esq. | Mr. John Wheatley, her master.
The volume has passed through several English and American editions, and is to be found in all first-class libraries in the country. Mrs. Wheatley sickened, and grieved daily after Phillis. A picture of her little ward, sent from England, adorned her bedroom; and she pointed it out to visiting friends with all the sincere pride of a mother. On one occasion she exclaimed to a friend, "See! Look at my Phillis! Does she not seem as though she would speak to me?" Getting no better, she sent a loving request to Phillis to come to her at as early a moment as possible. With a deep sense of gratitude to Mrs. Wheatley for countless blessings bestowed upon her, Phillis hastened to return to Boston. She found her friend and benefactor just living, and shortly had the mournful satisfaction of closing her sightless eyes. The husband and daughter followed the wife and mother quickly to the grave. Young Mr. Wheatley married, and settled in England. Phillis was alone in the world.
"She soon after received an offer of marriage from a respectable colored man, of Boston. The name of this individual was John Peters.[349] He kept a grocery in Court Street, and was a man of handsome person. He wore a wig, carried a cane, and quite acted out 'the gentleman.' In an evil hour, he was accepted; and, though he was a man of talents and information,—writing with fluency and propriety, and, at one period, reading law,—he proved utterly unworthy of the distinguished woman who honored him by her alliance."
Her married life was brief. She was the mother of one child, that died early. Ignorant of the duties of domestic life, courted and flattered by the cultivated, Peters's jealousy was at length turned into harsh treatment. Tenderly raised, and of a delicate constitution, Phillis soon went into decline, and died Dec. 5, 1784, in the thirty-first[350] year of her life, greatly beloved and sincerely mourned by all whose good fortune it had been to know of her high mental endowments and blameless Christian life.
Her influence upon the rapidly growing anti-slavery sentiment of Massachusetts was considerable. The friends of humanity took pleasure in pointing to her marvellous achievements, as an evidence of what the Negro could do under favorable circumstances. From a state of nudity in a slave-market, a stranger to the English language, this young African girl had won her way over the rough path of learning; had conquered the spirit of caste in the best society of conservative old Boston; had brought two continents to her feet in admiration and amazement at the rare poetical accomplishments of a child of Africa![351]
She addressed a poem to Gen. Washington that pleased the old warrior very much. We have never seen it, though we have searched diligently. Mr. Sparks says of it,—
"I have not been able to find, among Washington's papers the letter and poem addressed to him. They have doubtless been lost. From the circumstance of her invoking the muse in his praise, and from the tenor of some of her printed pieces, particularly one addressed to King George seven years before, in which she compliments him on the repeal of the Stamp Act, it may be inferred, that she was a Whig in politics after the American way of thinking; and it might be curious to see in what manner she would eulogize liberty and the rights of man, while herself, nominally at least, in bondage."[352]
Gen. Washington, in a letter to Joseph Reed, bearing date of the 10th of February, 1776, from Cambridge, refers to the letter and poem as follows:—
"I recollect nothing else worth giving you the trouble of, unless you can be amused by reading a letter and poem addressed to me by Miss Phillis Wheatley. In searching over a parcel of papers the other day, in order to destroy such as were useless, I brought it to light again. At first, with a view of doing justice to her poetical genius, I had a great mind to publish the poem; but not knowing whether it might not be considered rather as a mark of my own vanity, than as a compliment to her, I laid it aside,[353] till I came across it again in the manner just mentioned."[354]
This gives the world an "inside" view of the brave old general's opinion of the poem and poetess, but the "outside" view, as expressed to Phil's, is worthy of reproduction at this point.
Cambridge, 28 February, 1776.
Miss Phillis,—Your favor of the 26th of October did not reach my hands, till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming but not real neglect. I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant lines you enclosed; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem, had I not been apprehensive, that, while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing else, determined me not to give it place in the public prints.
If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near head-quarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the Muses, and to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations.
I am, with great respect, your obedient, humble servant,