Phillis Wheatley and the Music of Freedom

Phillis Wheatley was named after the slave ship that brought her to the colonies as a child and for her enslaver. The Wheatley’s soon saw the great talent and potential she possessed and began to give her schooling over and above that of their other enslaved servants. At an early age, she was reading the hardest passages in the Bible. She began to write poetry that garnered the attention of George Washington, who became a strong proponent of her poetry, which brought out the irony that the freedom and equality that the white gentry was fighting for did not apply to the enslaved. Phillis was eventually manumitted. Join the Governor’s Musick in a musical exploration of the paradox of freedom as seen through the poetry of Phillis Wheatley.