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myNotes

1 In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American
to publish a book of poetry. When she went to London to meet
with literary admirers, she became the most famous black person

on both sides of the Atlantic.
2 But in 1772, Wheatley’s book almost didn’t get published,
because printers in colonial Boston could not believe that an

African-born enslaved girl wrote such wonderful verses all by
herself.
3 To prove the poems were her very own, the teenage poet
consented to be cross-examined by eighteen of the most learned

and powerful men of Massachusetts. Phillis’s big test . . .

4 One crisp early-autumn morning, Phillis Wheatley was
crossing the Boston cobblestones with a sheaf of papers
held tightly under her arm. When her master, John

Wheatley, had offered her a ride to her examination, she
said she would prefer to walk.

5 She would make her own way to the public hall where
the most important men of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
would examine her and settle the question once and for all:
was she or was she not the author of her poems?

6 She had spent recent evenings copying and recopying
her poetry in her own neat handwriting. She knew each
poem inside out. What kind of questions would they ask?

Why should she have to defend her own verse?

consented If you consented to something, you agreed to it.
sheaf A sheaf of papers is a bundle of sheets held together.

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