She was a poet. But before she was a poet, she was a young girl, a captive brought over on a ship from Senegambia. She was purchased by the Wheatley family, who wanted a daughter to replace the one they’d lost. Phillis would be that stand-in. And because she was a “daughter,” she was actually never a working slave and was even homeschooled. By eleven, she’d written her first poem. By twelve, she could read Greek and Latin classics, English literature, and the Bible. That same year she also published her first poem.
