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Phillis Wheatley as a Scribe
12019-07-16T10:52:32+00:00Emma Sternberg9dd1d1d0edcde572d5819158147f717e072da3b911Chiles Note 8plain2019-07-16T10:52:32+00:00Emma Sternberg9dd1d1d0edcde572d5819158147f717e072da3b9Julian D. Mason, Jr., notes this in a subordinate clause: “The letter, which appears to be in Phillis’s hand, indicates that she [Phillis] was not the only one with physical problems.” Mason, “Introduction,” The Poems of Phillis Wheatley, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 6. Mason includes the entire letter in his “Introduction” and “believe[s] this is the first time that this letter has been published in full” (7). William Robinson claims that Phillis served as a scribe for Nathaniel Wheatley on at least two occasions: for a 2 January 1770 letter to Eleazar Wheelock (linked below), and for a 12 November 1770 letter to William Channing. See Robinson, Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984), 14, 305, and 307. Vincent Carretta expresses doubt about distinguishing Phillis’s handwriting from that of Nathaniel and, thus, about Robinson’s claim (Biography, 40-41). For more on Phillis’s education, see Biography, 37-41. On her handwriting in general, see Complete Writings, 195-196. Building on Mason, I feel strongly that Phillis Wheatley served as an amanuensis for this letter. Mary married in 1771; the letter itself indicates that Mr. Wheatley was also quite ill. I find it unlikely that Nathaniel served as a scribe for this letter, given what Susanna says about him (discussed below). Further, Phillis was known to sit at Susanna’s bedside and was there when she died (Biography 143-44). Lastly, comparison among the following letters demonstrates similarity in handwriting between the 29 March letter and those known to be written by Phillis, in contrast to that known to be written by Susanna. See Susanna Wheatley to Samson Occom and Nathaniel Whitaker, 1765, https://collections.dartmouth.edu/occom/html/diplomatic/765681-2-diplomatic.html; Phillis Wheatley to Obour Tanner, 1772, https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=773&mode=large&img_step=1&&br=1; Phillis Wheatley to David Wooster, 1773, https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=771&mode=large&img_step=1&&br=1; and Phillis Wheatley to Samuel Hopkins, 1774, http://www.bostonliteraryhistory.com/chapter-2/phillis-wheatley-1753–1784-reverend-samuel-hopkins-1721–1803.html. The letter Robinson claims to be transcribed by Phillis for Nathaniel is from Nathaniel Wheatley to Eleazar Wheelock, 1770, https://collections.dartmouth.edu/occom/html/diplomatic/770102-diplomatic.html.
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12019-07-16T10:53:15+00:00Phillis Wheatley's Hidden Literacy1Chiles Page 2plain2019-07-16T10:53:15+00:00But this letter—from Susanna Wheatley to Mohegan minister Samson Occom—suggests that Phillis Wheatley did not always write alone. Indeed, hidden within this letter is a writing skill Wheatley likely performed in being a scribe, serving as an amanuensis for Susanna, who, though literate, was too ill to inscribe her letter to Occom herself and dictated to Wheatley instead.8 Certainly, this specific co-labor is not the same kind of collaboration that has worried Wheatley readers and scholars for almost 250 years. Instead, this literacy has remained hidden, in plain sight, almost never commented upon by scholars. But considering this hidden literacy—the labor that Phillis probably contributed as an amanuensis to the production of this letter from Susanna—might help us reconceive the suspected collaboration between Susanna and Phillis that some readers conjectured went into the publication of Poems on Various Subjects. In addition, attending to this hidden literacy has the potential not only to give us another way to understand Phillis Wheatley but also to change the way we think about early African American literature.