Phillis Wheatley was named for the slave ship Phillis that brought her from Gambia, West Africa, to Boston in 1761, and the Wheatley family who purchased her. At 12 years old, educated by her mistress, she began publishing poems and elegies in newspapers. She was freed after the publication of her book. Her depiction in this frontispiece is the only surviving work by the African-American slave artist Scipio Moorhead (b. ca. 1750). Gift of Sidney Lapidus, Class of 1959. Rare Book Division.

FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION: See this item’s catalog record, or read about this item in a previous exhibition, “Liberty and the American Revolution.”