Brought from Africa at age 7, Phillis Wheatley demanded and received emancipation shortly after the publication of her first book of poems in 1773. "In every human Breast," she wrote in a letter at the time, "God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom."
In The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence, historian David Waldstreicher paints a portrait of a woman bursting with agency—a very different character than the naive genius discovered and elevated by her patrons (and enslavers) whom I learned about in school.
