Phillis Wheatley

Thesis, Subarguments
At first it looks like Wheatley is simply “copying” (a slave who wanted to tell the truth about the oppressive system first had to acquire the requisite language skills), her biblical terminology has some implications for talking about slavery (surreptitiously)—O’Neale “A Slave’s Subtle War”). Wheatley used biblical myth, language, and symbol to “be the most conducive vehicles for making subtle, yet effective statements against slavery.” Wheatley used formal tactics, challenged Evangelicals “in their cherished religious arena” by reusing their same language and “doctrine that whites had used to define the African,” against them—undercutting the conventional assumptions of Evangelicals in the colonies. Offered hope and logic for inclusion in a Christian community.

Key Terms
black, Cain, Ham, Abel, diabolic dye, benighted, savior/redemption, Egyptians/Israelites, "Ethiop"

Summary
1) Through manipulating the definitions of the color black into a Christian context (bc of black meaning sin, race and sin, contact endangered white person’s soul) (“On Being Brought…” she consciously manipulates blackness (“Christians, Negroes, black as Cain”) (my benighted soul vs. diabolic dye)—black was before she was saved, and whites can be black too. (saviour, redeemer, judaic slavery)

2)  Wheatley never calls herself or fellow slaves American—instead she uses “Ethiopian,”—biblical status as a chosen nation—they had enslaved the heirs of biblical patriarchs. (“To the University of Cambridge…”) “An Ethiop tells you tis your greatest foe.” She uses biblical references to the Ethiopian to counter the arguments that Blacks were soulless animals. In this work it is whites who are akin to the Edenic animal and its master, Satan. Gave African readers a sense of ethnicity related to Israel and antiquity that Europeans would not have.

Important Quotes and Meanings
'Twas mercy brought me from my  Pagan  land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there's a God, that there's a  Saviour  too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

"Their colour is a diabolic die."

Remember,  Christians ,  Negros, black as  Cain ,

May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.