Teaching Phillis Wheatley Peters’s Morals on Words and Actions in American Literature to 1860

This article argues that teaching Phillis Wheatley-Peters (c. 1753-1784) as a moral authority during the American Revolution provides a robust historical framework for fostering an empowering humanism in students. When Phillis Wheatley Peters wrote to Indigenous Mohegan Minister Samson Occom (1723-1792) in 1774, she expressed satisfaction with his reasons for recognizing the conditions faced by enslaved Africans in North America. Her didactic perspective aimed to enlighten her readers about the limitations of the human condition: “This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite.” My students and I explore the development of Phillis Wheatley’s moral authority in my American Literature to 1860 course at the University of Pittsburgh. To establish the framework of her developing moral authority, I highlight her interactions in London and with colonial American leaders, illustrating her profound efforts to confront the pervasive violence of the era. Wheatley-Peters sought to redefine the moral and religious principles guiding the formation of the modern nation-state through her influential writing campaign to General George Washington (1732-1799) in 1775. Therefore, the course aimed to engage students in understanding the historical narrative of early America from the perspective of colonists who sought to take actionable steps to address the violence of that time.