Introducing barbara lewis. Dr. Lewis heads the william at thetrotter Institute University of massachusetts boston where she is also an associate professor of english. She is a francophone scholar as well as a cultural historian who has published on lynching in film, photography and drama and the black arts movement. She currently blogs and is affiliated with the Massachusetts Foundation for the humanities and sits on the Advisory Board of Central Square theater. Before dr. Lewis takes the stage, i am going to ask you all if you would not mind turning off your cell phones, and also please note that cspan is recording, and at the end, if you have questions, if you would come to the microphone, that would be great. Now i have the pleasure of introducing dr. Barbara lewis. [applause] barbara it is truly a pleasure to be with you this evening. Particularly since so many of us understand that this is the birthday of Phillis Wheatley. We cannot say for sure that it is the birthday, because no one knows exactly when she was born. But, by tradition and believe, this day has been designated to celebrate her coming to earth. Let me say a little bit about how this arose. As mentioned, i am affiliated with the theater. A year or so ago there was a play that they did which was set in africa, about a woman who was seriously committed to religion. As i thought about the play, it seemed to me she was an african pygmalion. Herself was ans african pygmy alien py gmalion. Someone who would been transformed by her experience. But, the transformation it seemed, was more beneficial perhaps to those who had transformed her, then it was to her herself. That got me to thinking more about Phillis Wheatley. We have a building named the wheatley building. Also, thinking about boston and the flickering history it has had. It has had this history where, at some point, its connection to africanAmerican History has seemed positive, and other times where it does not seem quite so positive. That flickering change in character fascinated me. It invited me to look more deeply at the history of Phillis Wheatley. I must confess, maybe it is even an addiction to history. I love history, it fascinates me. I like reading about it, thinking about it, i like treating it like water, through which i swim. This, to me, this historical look at Phillis Wheatley, represents a subject that has lots to show us. I hope i can be someone who brings that perspective to bear this evening. I start with saying Phillis Wheatley had a signature. She could read, she could write. Imagine, create. She would write for her own time and future generations her experiences and insights. And her connection to the world around her, she belongs to and symbolizes a transitional time, when boston and the commonwealth served a pivotal position in the nation. She saw the country being formed and her life was tied into that process to which she provides a fundamental comments. I want to start with and now, a lot of attention has been paid recently to the wall street statue of a little girl confronting a bull. I see that bull as a symbol of power and greed and insatiable appetite. The little girl with her hands on her hips and arching back seems to be telling the bull of the past that she has power, too, and can stand her ground. For me, the little girl symbolizes an enduring, undying Phillis Wheatley, who stands for and represents a world much bigger and older than herself. Now, we proceeding to an american genesis. A pivotal atlantic crossing. In 1630, a ship named the arabella came to what we know is boston. On board that ship, john winthrop, a lawyer, envisioned a future of freedom he and his fellow puritans would have. Together, they would create a new, splendid, exemplary city. Seven years after the puritans put their feet on the ground, they had waged war with the result that they were able to support import slaves to the caribbean. From which, they could never return. The year after that, a shipment of african bodies arrived in boston on a ship named of the desire, which was a specially built in 1636, to traffic in slaves. Harvard was founded in 1636. The same year the slave trade became a shipping enterprise in the commonwealth. John winthrop saw the desire arriving from his window and noticed that event in his diary. Writing it down, recording it is real and is a fact of history. We can conjecture what happened to several of the individuals purchased off of the desire. They were split apart. More than likely, samuel maverick, a large landowner, bought them. The new england bound, we learned maverick ordered his male slaves to rape his female slaves so he could increase his stock of bodies. Therape the rape victim was not happy. She protested verbally. The female voice of african protest emerges early, the same desire landed, 1638. Not agreeing her womb was a mans property, she spoke to an englishman who wrote about her displeasure. This anonymous woman anonymous not just because we do not know her name but because slavery cut out her name and personhood enters history with a strong, undeniable voice. And that was also what phillis did more than a century later. Led by john winthrop, the puritans soon realized that they were going to dominate the land and extract wealth from it, they needed a laboring army that they could force to there will and word. To achieve this, they negotiated and created in 1641 a set of laws governing their behavior. Euphemistically called, the body of liberties. Which stipulated they could take away the liberties of others, including wayward women, whose purpose it was to enrich them irs into eternity. The first laws to secure slavery in what became the United States were passed not in the south, but in the commonwealth of massachusetts. The Transatlantic Slave Trade provided the wealth basis for the early commonwealth. It supported her life of culture, expansion, learning, and prosperity. All backed by religious and biblical beliefs, which allowed for a life of ease and plenty. For wealth, leisure, and educational platforms on which early new england stood. Owe their existence and prominence to slavery, which freed up the time of the owning class to rapidly grow their holdings and enrich themselves intellectually and culturally. Owning land and labor created wealth. Plantations were few in new england, but northern merchants owned the ships that moved the slaves from one continent to the other. They also owned the factories that manufactured the clothing that slaves and others wore. They owned the distilleries, appeasing appetites with rum and spirits. An industry dependent on sugar, on sugar cultivation. Wherever profit could be made, they were there. Gold and silver filled their coffers, day and night. They were sultans of industry. Some blacks also showed early ambition, like mrs. Atkins, an african woman who did the unthinkable in 1670. She purchased a house. Some funding likely came from her father, a slave who may have been on the desire and was later rewarded for his heroism in saving richard bellingham, a governor, from drowning. Mrs. Atkins put down roots in the north end, then a black community. Its a Burial Ground its Burial Ground includes thousands of black burials, now largely forgotten. Blackness is often erased. Unless as in the case of Phillis Wheatley, the historical evidence is undeniable. Mrs. Atkins may have been one of the first african children born in boston. That speculation is based on her age, when she entered the historical record. If she was 30 in 1670, which is likely, she wouldve been born around 1640, two years after the desire arrived and a year before slavery became law in the commonwealth. Cotton mather,nd two judges, were contemporaries. Sewell was the only salem trial which trial judge to make an apology for his role. He seemed to be a reflective sort, who did not always go along with the status quo, even if it was popular. He took a separate stance, relative to slavery. Dissenting from the notion that the bible condoned a slavery. There were slaves in the bible, so the slaves of the commonwealth were not seen as anathema. Indeed they were viewed as items , for purchase, which the puritans considered acceptable. Sewall, who was a do unto others as you would have them do unto you kind of guy, wrote the selling of joseph. The controversial pamphlet referenced the biblical story of joseph and his brothers. When famine hit their land, they traveled to egypt. By that point, joseph had risen from captivity to power and was kind to the brothers would been unkind to him. Sewall began to think that enslaving members of the human family was wrong and he was influenced toward abolitionist thoughts by a slave who sued his owner for breach of contract. Adam said that he had fulfilled his contractual terms. John did not agree and he lambasted adam as surly and the disobedient and not entitled to freedom. In court, adam with his wife won their case in 1703. The 18th century begins with abolitionist debate. This is a poem by john. He did not like losing his slave, a source of income and status, and so he wrote less than flattering words about adam, calling his character into question. Similar, i venture, to the taunting and verbal diminishment of blacks today, which we just saw again in fenway. What does the freedom struggle of adam and his wife have to do with wheatley . Phillis had a different relationship with her owners. They encouraged her talents and helped her promote them, unlike john saffin, who was dismissive of adam. Cotton mather returns to the story in relation to health. One of his slaves, a gift from his congregation, proved very useful. The meaning of his name in greek. Boston was a coastal city, also introduced in the city by foreigners and travelers. Smallpox was a serious danger. The slave shared knowledge from his west african home. He counseled taking a bit of infection from someone already stricken from the early phases of the disease in time, the patient would recover and death would be averted. Mather convinced the doctor , boylston to a nokia late late tookia innoculate several slaves and a few citizens. The result of this experiment, which the puritans railed against, the idea of poison and infection from one body put into another body, was the height of heathenism for them. But the result was that bostons death rate from the 1721 epidemic was much lower than it otherwise would have been. Onesimus helped save the city. In 1751 when phillis comes to boston, arriving on a dock in what is now chinatown, at the corner of beach and tyler, if you care to walk there, you will see a plaque commemorating her arrival. At the time, the city and country were in the midst of a religious awakening. Believing a man or woman of faith, including slaves, could speak to god directly. God was as close to them as their own heart. He was a loving parent who cared for them at all times and for every reason. George whitefield, an englishman, was the most popular preacher of the day. He could move thousands with his sermons. He was also a friend of susanna wheatley, often staying with the family when he visited boston. So Phillis Wheatley new him personally. When he died in 1770, she wrote an elegiac poem in his honor. She dedicated it to whitefields english patroness. Three years later, the countess supports the english publication of her first volume of poetry. This image of phillis in which she is not portrayed as a slave shows an alternate face of the poetess, who managed to succeed exceed through her own talent and ambition the station into which she was cast. The wheatleys kept phillis apart from their other slaves. She was not to eat with them, she was different and special, a emblem of their status and largess. It was part of european and aristocratic tradition to view pet slaves as accessories of their own importance. We often see portraits in royal museums in europe of well dressed slaves. Miniature copies of their masters, albeit with different skin. Whether Phillis Wheatley became an exponent of the high standing of the Wheatley Family that could afford to keep a literary slave, is a matter to be explored. In 1773, Phillis Wheatley went to london, where she published a collection of her poems. The image on the front was created by another enslaved boston african, who had artistic talent. Her stay in london was cut short by the news her mistress, susanna wheatley, was ill. Phillis wheatley vest returned immediately to boston to take up her office as handmaiden and servant. A status referred to twice on introductory pages, encircling her image on the title page. Being celebrated in london offered Phillis Wheatley perhaps the most exciting and exhilarating time in her life. A literary personality, she was soughtafter. But duty interrupted and ended her stay abroad. Phillis wheatley died in 1784. She was only 31 years old. Her life in the revolutionary era was sad and meager. The economy in the commonwealth suffered after the war. Those who had been her friend s had died or fallen away. Now, there is no stone marking her grave. We have no idea where she is buried. That we do have a monument to her memory on Commonwealth Avenue erected in 2003. Continues to fascinate. In a book, the author argues that wheatley deserves to be acknowledged as the poet laureate of the American Revolution. They lived on state street. Looking out the window, phillis had an up close and personal view of the theater of war. Volumes her poetic arrived on one of the ships teaeved of its shipment of in the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Irreversiblyn stains the reality. Phillis wheatley was known as in the last years of her life. An africanamerican man, mr. Peters was in and out of debtors prison. Money was scarce and hard to come by after the American Revolution, and it took a long while for the economy to reestablish itself. Mr. And mrs. Peters may have had several children. Say there were three, but none of them survive her. We also know that she continued to write but was unable to publish a second volume of poetry, although she kept trying as long as she had breath. End my presentation with a cursive letter that Phillis Wheatley wrote to another enslaved woman living in newport, with whom she corresponded for years. Mr. Tanner of newport was one of the factors of what is now brown university, leaving his library to that institution. Read by hisught to family or taught herself to read between chores, we do not know, but however she managed it, she was literate, and she and letters,exchanged maintaining a friendship for years, which was important and sustaining for both. When she was in her 80s, tanner decided to trust her trove of wheatley letters to the sisterinlaw of harriet or so, believing that she would recognize their worth and know how to preserve them for posterity the sisterinlaw. F Harriet Beecher stowe a few letters from their correspondents have since been discovered. Today, in the 21st entry, we have about 20 letters in the hands of wheatley who lives on in National Memory and consciousness by word and by deed. If he wants the technology or ull of history, grade, and power cannot deny the. Etermined little girl thank you. [applause] are there any questions you if there are, i invite you to come to the market phone the microphone. Thank you, ms. Lewis, for that really in normative presentation really informative presentation. I wondered if you could comment on how in the time Phillis Wheatley arrived in the americas, how unusual it was for clevelanders to teach their slaves to read and write and what motivated the wheatleys in particular to teach theirs. And how much did they call upon of intellectual Community Boston at that time. Me how ok, you asked many it was at that time. It certainly was not common. It was very uncommon. The reason they did was phillis own intelligence. When they purchased her, she was between six or seven years old. At the time she came to boston, there was a war going on. The sevenyears war. That was rants and england at each other. The traffic in slavery was reduced. I would have to say that the pickings were slim at that point in terms of slaves. Frails arrived as a very little girl. Susanna wheatley went to the doc ks they purchased the slaves off the boats. She went to the docks with her husband because she wanted a little girl she could train up as partners. She knew she was getting older, she was getting weaker. Her own children were going to leave at some point when they started their own families, so she wanted to be assured of care. They took her home, and in very short order, she picked up chalk and started writing on walls. Letters. Trace she was insistent on learning. Two children had who were then living. They were teenagers. They were twins. One was mary, the other was nathaniel. Mary fell in love with a little girl. She saw how eager she was to learn. She was also learning at that time, so she shared her lessons with phillis. She was proud of her, and she shared her successes with her parents, and they, too, became excited. This was unusual, how fascinated this little girl was and how quickly she was learning. She was learning latin. She was learning greek. Up practically as its a consuming every book she could get her hands on. Realized they had something different, something special, and they wanted to cultivate it. Susanna wheatley was a quite religious woman. As i mentioned, she was part of a religious group that was national. Im speculating here, but i herect something inside of was touched, and she suspected this child, even though dark, had a gift from god, and she wanted to cultivate it. Definitely, it was unusual. The idea that slaves could read was not something to be in because it might lead them to want freedom. It might lead them to be unhappy with their station in life. At the time, my sense is that there was no desire for thank you. Prof. Lewis i hope i answered. Oh no, that was great. The other thing i was curious about was the relationship of the wheatleys at the old south meeting house, and if they called upon intellectuals to help her or not. Prof. Lewis my sense is that need education outside of the house. I dont know if they called on other members of the old south meeting house. My understanding though is that they were very proud of her, and they displayed her knowledge whenever they could in social gatherings. I dont know if they did it at the church. I have not done all the research that i want to do, but i believe that phillis might have had to sit in the slave gallery at the Old South Church and would not have sat with the family. Hi barbara. I am wondering if you would address the reaction of Thomas Jefferson to Phillis Wheatley and what it meant, particularly in correspondence with George Washington and other great leaders in our time. Prof. Lewis jefferson certainly was not happy to think that there might be some person who was african and also intelligent and accomplished, that was far beyond his frame of reference. Jefferson continues to be enigmatic in his relationship and his treatment of africanamericans. Recently i was reading about a polish nobleman whose name i will mess up he came over and he fought in the American Revolution. He saw several slaves, some of whom got his attention. He fought the idea of slavery was a terrible, terrible mark. In his will, he left money for the freedom of slaves. He had become friendly with Thomas Jefferson and he left Thomas Jefferson as the executor of his estate. Jefferson ignored what he had put in his will, and would not use the money to free slaves. I dont know how to characterize jefferson, other than that. I dont intend to scandalized anyone who loves jefferson. He was contradictory. He was totally contradictory. He seems to have been very committed to his own pleasures and desires and books and ideas. He was insatiable in his desire for knowledge. He was constantly building. You are reminding me of another story i heard recently in a social gathering. There was someone who went to monticello and visited the house. He climbed up to the top of the dome of the house, and in that dome was sallys bedroom. It was only accessible to jefferson. For me, that is an architectural symbol of some of the contradictions he seems to have harbored at the same time. He took pleasure from the flesh of africanamericans, both carnal flesh and both carnal pleasure and economic pleasure, but he would not allow that africanamericans could have intelligence, or had rights. For me, his dismissive attitude toward Phillis Wheatley is not really a surprise. I just want to thank you for having this. Apologies, because i have laryngitis. I wanted to ask there was something i read about an inquiry that Phillis Wheatley was subjected to prior to the publication of her book. I think Benjamin Franklin was there subject to this inquiry by john hancock and the declaration of independence. I was wondering if you could talk about that. That seems to correspond with the idea of phillis living at a transitional point, a transitional point for her and her work. Prof. Lewis i believe there were 18 people brought into that room. It was kind of like, i would imagine, an oral defense for a dissertation. You had to prove that you wrote it, you had to prove that you had sufficient intelligence, you had to prove that you didnt plagiarize, you had to prove you are authentic. The leading male minds of the time were gathered in that room. They examined her. They wanted to know, was she capable of writing what she said she had written . I think the one contest we should look at is that this was the age of the enlightenment, and age of knowledge at a time when the gifts of the mind were celebrated. If you were intelligent, if you could express yourself by writing, if you could get the intellectual attention of others, you were considered at the top level of humanity. It was very difficult for a community, very difficult for a people who had legislated that anyone whos skin was dark did not have the capacity to think, did not have the capacity to write, did not have the capacity to feel. There are even some treatises that say people from africa could not feel pain. The belief was that these individuals, this people, were subhuman. For phillis to be able to write, and to write in ways that were equal to some of the top minds at the time, it was an idea that there was a great deal of Energy Behind to discount. That tribunal was pulled together to test whether or not she was what she said she was, which was a writer of intelligence, a writer of sensibility, a writer understood religion, a writer of morality. Could you also comment on the position of the wheatleys when captain John Wheatley escorted phillis to her trial before these male town leaders . If she was a specimen that was looked at as a point of pride in the family, was it not a challenge to the Wheatley Family that they doubted her writings were in fact her own, and that captain wheatley had committed fraud by pretending it to be hers . Prof. Lewis are you the lady that emailed me . We will talk about that a little later. I would talk about his accompaniment of Phillis Wheatley differently. I think he was absolutely convinced that Phillis Wheatley had the talent, the intelligence, and the capacity that was proclaimed publicly. I believe that he felt she would do brilliantly in the tribunal. I dont feel that there was anything negative about him escorting her to the tribunal. May i say what we corresponded about in emails, or did you want to talk more privately . About 2 days ago i got an email. It is fascinating working on this project, because perhaps about 10 people have messaged me with questions of different kinds. One of the more thrilling ones came from you. It is that you are a lineal descendent of susanna and John Wheatley. As i said, that is thrilling. It turns out you have worked in the Nursing Department . Youre on the faculty. You indicated you are not quite on campus as often as some other point, and you would prefer to engage with me at the talk. You had several questions, you said, about what has been puzzling you for a while about the relationship between susanna and John Wheatley and Phillis Wheatley. Do you have other questions, or was that the extent of it that you just asked . My questions lead to the quandary of whether because the wheatleys were my family, whether they were beneficent in part having contributed to her education, as well as reverend john lothrop, who she lived with later and perhaps it is a dichotomy of the two whether they were slaveholders in the harshest sense of the word, which i dont believe they were. And of course it kind of gets wound around the identity of my own family in the current era how do i look at my forefathers and mothers, and how does their identity as slaveowners, perhaps beneficent slaveowners, reflect on my current familys identity . I think it is churned up by the current black lives movement, and the horrendous treatment of people of color these days. It is kind of wound up in that if that is something that makes sense. Prof. Lewis it does. I am not sure the extent to which i can answer, but i will try. My answer i have to say is certainly personal. I dont know to what extent it would need to coincide with yours. Slavery is an extremely convoluted history. What i am thinking now, maybe this is a glass full, glass empty kind of question, or it can be approached that way whether the wheatleys were more or less beneficent . I think as human beings, we have vanity, but we have goodness wrapped up in the same person. [laughter] i think it is a question of percentages, and i think it may vary on different days. I have been puzzling with some of those questions also. I have been working on this on and off for a year. In terms of going deep into a culture and going deep into another time, a year is not long. There are very deep questions that would take a look of concentration and focus. In the time i have spent thinking about phillis and her experience under slavery, certainly her experience was less maybe i should not say less, i should say more her experience was a more positive experience than a lot of people who suffered the same fate. And that positivity, to a great extent, comes from her luck, if we can call it that, and i think we can. Her luck in being purchased by the wheatleys. I think if a frail little girl not yet 10 has to be purchased by anyone and put under the yoke of slavery, it was her good fortune to be purchased by a couple who had the generosity to encourage her natural proclivities. But on the other hand, slavery itself was far from a kind institution. It was not. And i have begun to think in the last few weeks that slavery is americas original sin. On television this morning, Condoleezza Rice said it is americas birth defect. Maybe it is one or the other, maybe it is both. It is an impediment that none of us, white, black, whatever else we may be none of us have fully gotten over it. None of us have fully addressed it. And your mention of black lives matter today is part in parcel of our inability to face the past as honestly and fully as we need to, bringing both sides of the division together, to look each other in the eye and be honest together. We have not yet done that. I think that the world that susanna and John Wheatley played makes it more possible for us to do that. I hope that answers you. Others . Yes. Poetry question. [laughter] what do you like about wheatleys poetry . What do we have to gain by studying wheatley as a poet . I happen to be a wheatley fan. Prof. Lewis her work is kind of prismatic in the sense that different ages have interpreted her differently. Some ages have said, oh my god, she wasnt black all that religion stuff, Alexander Pope and all of that classic stuff, where is the blackness in that . She totally divorced herself from her roots. Other generations have said, you have to look below the surface. Her times were such that she had to conform to the times. One of the things that really struck me about phillis and her poetry is how politically adept she was. It was like she was creating this pecan, a nut with a shell that was perfectly conformed to the times, but had a different meat inside. I truly appreciate her ability to continuing herself in relation to what she understood as the politics of then. But as time moves forward, her poetry seems to change with the times too. You can interpret the poetry in different ways in different times. That is why i call it prismatic. It has different surfaces. It seems like you might be satisfied, which is a good way for us to end. Unless there are questions from some folks who havent yet asked anything . Well, if not, give me a hand, and lets end it. [laughter] [applause] prof. Lewis thank you. Thank you very very much. This Holiday Weekend in American History tv on cspan3. Civil war discuss the with political loyalties and southern economic ties and the 1863 draft riots. It appears that these rights for organic and a perfect storm of resentment that have been building for maybe half a century. You were saying that this was not so much the irish riots but a working man the largest in history. We discussed locations associated with George Washingtons life including riverfront land on virginias woods. They had sold the property. He was so distancing himself, there were stories about the lineage was living more distantly created them a further away. Was not a retreat that a lot of the land to recall where the building was. The 1977 documentary about soldiers of the allblack u. S. Infantry regiment known as the harlem calfires. There was a canteen, a rifle, belt and a helmet. French helmets, french guns, it was filled with wine. Missing tzer prize winning historian talks about education, slavery and persevering in the face of hardship and how these ideal faced American Society bid his mother was illiterate, his and may be read because there was a bible in the only book. They were part of everyday from childhood on. Because he got a scholarship to those Little College in cambridge called harvard and as he discovered books and read forever he became the john adams to help change the world. For our complete American History tv schedule go to cspan. Org. On july 6 join American History tv for a Light Program from the new seam of the American Revolution and philadelphia. From 7 00 p. M. Eastern time we will be joined by museum staff to learn about their artifacts and exhibits. They will be taking questions and comments. Here is a preview. Hello i am the president and ceo of the museum of the American Revolution. Plazaow standing at the at the corner of third and Chestnut Street in old city philadelphia. Philadelphia was the headquarters of the revolution grade this is where the when the british oppression first mounted this is where the declaration of independence was written just 200 yards away. Most centrals the element of the American Revolution. The birth of our nation which is why this museum is located here. Just on the street from me is the first bank of the United States. That is Alexander Hamiltons ranch bank when he first launched the federal Banking System and is also the first building conscripted by the United States of america. We really are where the nation began and it is the place to tell the story of the American Revolution which is our mission in this museum grade behind the uc cans from the era. They are from the collection. Oldyone of these canons is enough to fight in the revolution. On the wall behind me uc carved rows of the declaration of independence. This is the whole purpose of the American Revolution. It began in 1776. He continues to this very day. Having looked at the outside of the museum, lets go in. We are entering their recount museumthe rotunda of the it is a classic space. The architect of the building was selected because he so thoroughly understands classical architecture. Not because we wanted to copy a building, but because we wanted the same sense of scale and he delivered beautifully. This rotunda is wonderful. Lets go upstairs. The design is intentional to stairways ofoaring area. Lonial republic in the secondfloor atrium where the core of our exhibits are created. In the adrian you notice some historic andt are they capture the spirit of the American Revolution. The one that you are looking at from a pennsylvania artist. He painted this in the early 20th century. His depiction of Washingtons Army marching into the valley. This was a terrible winter after the british captured philadelphia. Behind me the magnificent from ag but it is a copy frenchman, the original hangs and verse i. What it shows is the siege of yorktown. A french artist painted this for the king. ,he most prominent individual he is the one in the sash. Our general is behind him. It does capture the critically frenchnt role that the played American Revolution. This is much more napoleonic. More thansomething George Washington would have the one of the credentials we have is from George Washington. Thursday, july 6 at 7 00 p. M. Eastern time the museum of the American Revolution. This year marks the centennial of the 19 six riots in st. Louis. They killed almost 50 people people. They recall the events that lead to one of the deadliest race the author is part of the civil rights movement. Was 45 minute event recorded in st. Louis