National Museum of African American History and Culture
<I>"Some Account of Phillis, a learned Negro Girl" in The Gentleman's Magazine</I>
David Henry, English, 1709 - 1792 · May 1773
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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