The Fire This Time

As a child in her functionally segregated school, Jeffers learned about important black figures from history. Her teachers and parents praised Phillis Wheatley in particular: a slave whose poetry was published during her lifetime.

In childhood, Jeffers felt sad for Wheatley’s lack of a husband, but during college she learned that Wheatley was married to John Peters. His description utilized prejudicial characterizations of black men, such as his leaving his wife and child without money or support. Reading about Peters reminded Jeffers of local men surrounding Talladega College in Alabama who catcalled the women who studied there and how her mother spoke of such men.

A self-described “collateral descendant” (65) of Phillis Wheatley named Margaretta Matilda Odell wrote the definitive book on Wheatley’s personal details. Called Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, A Native African and a Slave, it was published in 1834. Odell’s book describes Phillis Wheatley’s arrival in Boston at seven years old and how her mistress Susannah Wheatley taught her to read and write. 

Wheatley publicized her poetry on a journey to London, published her book in 1773, and was also freed sometime during that year. Wheatley’s written correspondence and the content of her poetry demonstrate her prolonged devotion to her home continent. One of Wheatley’s poems describes her painful capture from Africa.

Apparently, Wheatley shared a close relationship with her mistress Susannah Wheatley, who also trumpeted the young woman’s poetry and secured its publishing. Phillis saw Susannah as a mothering figure and lived with the family after they freed her, but slavery complicated this mutual affection. 

Odell’s biography of Phillis Wheatley follows the account of Susannah Wheatley’s death with that of her marriage to the charming, good-looking John Peters. In a long excerpt from Odell’s book, she describes him as egotistical and financially irresponsible, to the detriment of Wheatley. Odell suggests an unhappy and abusive marriage between Wheatley and John Peters, riddled with poverty and the tragic deaths of their three children. Wheatley herself died at thirty-three years old, which Odell similarly depicts as the result of her unfortunate partnership with Peters. 

The work of writer Henry Louis Gates, Jr. frames Phillis Wheatley as a corrective to Enlightenment-era thinkers who demeaned African intelligence. Thomas Jefferson, in fact, dismissed Wheatley outright; prejudice like this prompted black writers and scholars to push their work forward all the more, according to Gates. After reading Gates, Jeffers sought as much writing by and about Phillis Wheatley as she could. 

Jeffers considers Wheatley’s controversial poem, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” which begins, “'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land [...]” (70). In the first four lines, Wheatley writes that her capture transported her to a land where she learned about God and found redemption in him. This poem made Jeffers think about the trauma of Wheatley’s separation from her family and how many African Americans maintain religious hope despite suffering. 

Jeffers reprints the text of a poem she wrote about Wheatley’s difficult passage from Africa to America. Her poetic speaker asks what made Wheatley endure and suggests, “Perhaps it was mercy […]” (71). As part of a fellowship, Jeffers goes to the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in Worcester, Massachusetts, to research Wheatley. 

Jeffers’s search yields significant mentions of Odell, but Odell’s legitimacy as Wheatley’s biographer and relative cannot be verified. Jeffers travels to the Northeast National Archives in Waltham, Massachusetts for further research. She finds a mention of John Peters on a Boston census from 1790 (72). Although Odell wrote that Peters moved south after Wheatley’s death, this census record suggests that is untrue and throws suspicion on Odell’s authorial authority. 

Jeffers wonders about the status of Wheatley and Peters’s relationship near the time of her death in 1784 and why he was documented as a citizen of the Boston area four years later. Jeffers speaks with her mentor at the AAS about Odell’s claim of being Wheatley’s relative. Jeffers finds a record of Odell but no evidence of her ancestry.

The writer Vincent Carretta found an incredible amount of documentation about Phillis Wheatley for his biography Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage, but he could not find an account of Wheatley’s meeting John Peters. They married in 1778, and Wheatley used the surname Peters thereafter. During this era, several politically active black Americans came to prominence, such as Crispus Attucks, Lemuel Haynes, and Prince Hall. According to Carretta’s book, John Peters was an avid businessman and a fairly typical man during his time. 

Odell’s description of Peters betrays her condescension toward black men who aspired to succeed. Of the few accounts referencing Peters, one is written by a white man and another by a source of dubious accuracy. Jeffers similarly questions Odell’s assumption that Peters’s neglect and abuse led to the deaths of his children and his wife; these deaths, although tragic, were common occurrences during the eighteenth century. 

When Wheatley died, according to Carretta, Peters was in prison for unpaid debts, like many of his contemporaries in New England’s post-revolutionary period. Afterward, Peters pursued financial success and social status, as well as the posthumous publishing of Wheatley’s second book of poems. A curator at AAS showed Jeffers a letter between printers about the publishing of this book, although the book was never printed. Peters passed away without clearing his debts in 1801 and left behind valuable possessions such as these books.

Jeffers has continued her thorough research on both primary and secondary sources regarding Phillis Wheatley. She has published poems inspired by her research, as well as an essay she excerpts, in which Jeffers questions the supremacy of Odell’s Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Jeffers desires that someone find accurate information on her now-beloved Wheatley, as well as genealogical data on Odell. If this proves impossible, Jeffers recommends ceasing to use Odell’s work or classifying her biography of Wheatley as historical fiction. 

Jeffers acknowledges the difficulty of scholarly research, particularly when it comes to studying eighteenth-century slaves. Without Odell’s book, scholarship on Wheatley would become more challenging, but the nineteenth-century biography is what Jeffers calls a “pitiful tribute to the woman who is the mother of African American literature” (80). Wheatley’s work demonstrated that contrary to what white people thought, black people had deep inner lives and great creative capacity.

There might be a great book in imagining Wheatley’s life in Africa, her family, and West African culture at that time. Jeffers also desires a kinder work about John Peters, whom Wheatley might have married for love. Jeffers considers this a plausible explanation, as African Americans did marry for love during that time. Jeffers concludes her essay imagining the love between Peters and Wheatley, spending evenings in bed dreaming of future successes, swapping stories, and embracing.