Black Poetry Tuesdays (July 4, 2023 Edition): "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley

The week’s poem is a piece from Phillis Wheatley, a Black woman whose poetic works came to national and international attention while enslaved by a white family in Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of seven. Phillis became one of the most prominent poets in pre-19th-century literature as an enslaved domestic worker, and she spoke of her experiences in chattel slavery and the heaviness of her circumstances.

The following piece is entitled "On Being Brought from Africa to America." It is one of her heavier pieces, exploring the forced assimilation of enslaved Africans into Christianity.

On Being Brought from Africa to America

' Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
'Their colour is a diabolic die.'
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

You can learn more about Phillis here.