Phillis's Curiosity
While in Boston, I heard of a very Extraordinary female Slave, who had made some verses on our mutually Dear deceased friend [Reverend George Whitefield]; I visited her Mistress, and found by conversing with the African, that she was no Imposter; I asked if she could write on any Subject; she said Yes: we had just heard of your Lordships Appointment; I gave her your name, which she was acquainted with. She immediately wrote a rough Copy of the inclosed address & letter, which I promised to convey or delivery. I was astonish’d, and could hardly believe my own Eyes. I was present while she wrote, and can attest that it is her own production; she shew’d me her letter to Lady Huntingdon, which I daresay your Lordship has seen; I send you an account signed by her master of her Importation, Education &c they are all wrote in her own hand. (Rpt. in Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley, ed. William H. Robinson [Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1982], 20-21, emphasis added.)
James A. Rawley notes that the statement of “biographical details about Phillis” signed by Nathaniel “is substantially the same as one signed by John a month later, and published as a preface to the volume of poems” (“The World of Phillis Wheatley,” New England Quarterly 50.4 [Dec. 1977], 670). The 12 October 1772 biographical sketch signed by Nathaniel Wheatley ends: “This account is given by Her Mistress who bought her, and with whom she now Lives” (facsimile copy, Robinson, Writings, 403); the 14 November 1772 biographical sketch signed by John Wheatley and printed in Poems ends: “This Relation is given by her Master who bought her, and with whom she now lives” (Complete Writings, 7. Brooks notes, “Just as she had drawn up her own biographical account to be signed by Nathaniel Wheatley, it is likely that Phillis Wheatley also drew up an attestation (or, as [John] Andrews describes it, had one ‘drawn up’) …” (Our Phillis, 6). Carretta claims that “The ‘Account’ Wooldridge mentions was actually dictated by Nathaniel, not John, Wheatley to Phillis. It became the basis of the first two paragraphs of the statement attributed to John Wheatley that prefaces Phillis’s Poems published in 1773,” (131). Robinson claims that “When Thomas Wooldridge had visited the Wheatley household in the fall of 1772, to see for himself the much discussed slave poet, Phillis had written, before his very eyes, a poem and covering letter to Dartmouth, and a brief biographical sketch of herself signed for Nathaniel Wheatley, whose name is undersigned with the date ‘Oct. 12th 1772.’ Mrs. Wheatley then had Phillis revise and slightly expand this sketch by adding a few flattering details and by having this version signed ‘John Wheatley./ Boston, Nov. 14, 1772.’ Phillis also prepared a traditional preface, singularized by her clever inclusion of a reminder to her readers that she was a slave …” (Writings, 30-31). Robinson reproduces a facsimile copy of the biographical sketch sent to Dartmouth in Writings, 403, where he claims in a footnote that “In the handwriting of Phillis Wheatley, this biographical sketch was dictated by Mrs. Susanna Wheatley and signed for Nathaniel Wheatley—as the male head of the household (John Wheatley had retired the previous year), and was delivered by Thomas Wooldridge to Lord Dartmouth, along with Phillis’s poem, and a covering letter. Phillis would revise this sketch, sign John Wheatley’s name to it, date it November 4, 1772, and have this version added to the prefatory materials for the volume of poems published in London in September of 1773 and to subsequent reprinted editions” (403). See also Muhktar Ali Isani, “Early Versions of Some Works by Phillis Wheatley,” Early American Literature 14.2 (Fall 1979), 149-55.