<I>Phillis Wheatley</I>
National Museum of African American History and Culture

<I>Phillis Wheatley</I>

Phillis Wheatley Club, American · 1930

ink on paper with metal
National Museum of African American History and Culture
CC0 — Public Domain
National Museum of African American History and Culture

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.

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