Critique of "On Being Brought from Africa to America"

The poem On Being Brought from Africa to America was written by a female slave
called Phillis Wheatley in 1768. It delves deeply into the psyche of the African American
slave speaker who attempts to reflect on her experience of being forcibly relocated to
colonial America.

In the poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America", the speaker expresses a
gratitude for her enslavement, which is very unexpected to most readers who have the
perception that enslavement is full of brutality and agony. In the first line of the poem, the
speaker states that being brought from Africa to America is a "mercy". Using the word
"mercy", the speaker does not express any anger or sorrow about being turned into a
slave. Instead, she is joyful and glad to embrace the enslavement. In the second line of the
poem, the speaker states that being brought from Africa to America taught her "benighted
soul to undersatand." The speaker deems the enslavement as a time for enlightenment and
awakening.
The speaker of this poem also expresses a strong sense of enthusiasm and genuine
faith in Christianity. While admitting her ignorance and incapability in front of god, the
speakers firmly believes that Africans can also be "refined" by God. In line 5, the speaker
uses the word "sable" to describe her race. Sable is an Old World weasellike mammal
valued for its dark brown fur. Using sable to describe her race, she affrim that her dark
skin color is not something that brings her inferiority. It is suggested that Africans, who
are with dark skin also have their value and nobility in front of God.

Phillis Wheatley's claim about the situation of African slave in America presented in
the poem "On Being brought from Africa to America" is far from the reality.

Phillis used the word "brought" to describe the process of getting the slaves from Africa
to America. This deftly downplayed the brutality and violence involved in the process of
getting slaves. Thousands of Africans were actually kidnapped to become slaves. "In
Angola, starting from 1491, Portuguese used considerable military might to capture and
enslave Africans."(Carson &Nash &Lapsansky-Werner, 2005) Elsewhere in Africa, local
rulers controlled the process of raiding for slaves, marching captives to the coast, and
selling bondspeople to European merchants and ship captains. Olaudah Equiano was born
in the kingdom of Benin, in 1745. At the age of eleven, he was kidnapped and sold to
white European slave traders. After changing hands a few times, Equiano was transported
across the Atlantic Ocean to the British colony of Virginia. He was one of the few
Africans who could live long enough to write an autobiography and record their
experience of enslavenment. In his autobiography, Equiano wrote that "The stench of the
hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome. The whole ship's cargo
were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and
the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship it was so crowded that each had
scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated. This....produced copious perspirations,
so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety loathsome smells, and
brought on a sickness amongst the slaves of which many died"(Carson &Nash
&Lapsansky-Werner, 2005) Equiano's autobiography genuinely depicted the awful
condition of the transportation of slaves from Africa to America. The slave traders aimed
to transport the slaves with the greatest convenience and lowest cost regardless of
whether the conditions for slaves was hygienic or humanized. In fact, "for four centuries
after Columbus's voyages to the Americas, more than 10 million perished during the
forced marches from African interior to coastal trading forts or during the ocean voyage
west to Americas."(Carson &Nash &Lapsansky-Werner, 2005) This high mortality rate in
addition to Equiano's account of the situation are ample proof to the brutality and
inhumanity involved in getting slaves.

The journey from Africa to America was only the prelude to the extremely sorrowful
and dehumanized life of a slave in America. Being a slave in America was definitely not a
"mercy". Facing a rising tide of imported Africans in all colonies, lawmakers of different
colonies in America gradually drew up a comprehensive series of laws-slave code to
regulate the governance of slave. These laws defined the status of slaves, how much
white owners could extract from black slaves and what kind of punishments they could
mete out infractions of work rules, running away and attack on masters' property. For
example, in 1662, the legisture in Virginia passed down the law stating that slave status
was lifelong and it was inherited through enslaved mothers. Gradually, all colonies in
America had this legislation. In 1705, a law legislated in Virginia stated that "if any slave
resists his master...correcting such a slave, and shall happen to be killed in such
correction...the master shall be free of all punishment...as if such accident never
happened."In South Carolina, a compulsory pass system that required slaves to carry a
pass when travelling on their own away from their owner plantation was passed down for
restricting the slaves' mobility." (Carson &Nash &Lapsansky-Werner, 2005)

Under the slave code, slaves in America were deprived of any rights or freedom. The
slave code gave masters the right to put any request and inflict any punishment they
wanted on slaves. There was an absolute inbalance in power between white masters and
black slaves, which led to violence and injustice against slaves. One-quarter of the
Aftican slaves imported to South Carolina in the first half of the eighteenth century died
within a year of their arrival due to overwork, inadequate nutirtion, and respiratory
disease. (Carson &Nash &Lapsansky-Werner, 2005) At the same time, however, the
white masters were making enormous profit out of the exploitation of Black slaves: by
late 1760s, white South Carolina planters were exporting more than 60 million pounds of
rice annually(Carson &Nash &Lapsansky-Werner, 2005).

The perception of Phillis Wheatley towards slavery is largely related to her own
experience of enslavement. Compared to millions of slave in America, Phillis Wheatley is
a lucky one. "Born in 1755, and abducted by slave traders as a small child, Wheatley
arrived on North America shores in a slave ship in 1764. Phillis ended up serving the
household of a successful Boston tailor. The Wheatley family taught Phillis English and
Christianity. At the age of nine, she could read the most difficult biblical passage and was
devouring every piece of secular and religious literature that her master put in her
hands"(Carson &Nash &Lapsansky-Werner, 2005) Once Phillis Wheatley demonstrated
her abilities, the Wheatleys, a family of culture and education, allowed Phillis time to do
study and write. Her situation allowed her time to learn and, as early as 1765, to write
poetry. In 1773, her poems were published in London. Phillis Wheatley had muchfewer
restrictions than most of the slaves experienced. She did not suffer from any toil or abuse
that the most of the slaves had. In Phillis case, she was really benefils from the
enslavement. If she had not been abducted and sold to America as a slave, she would have
lived in the barbarian and uncivilized society in Africa for the rest of her life. The
experience of enslavement brought her literacy, knowledge and to the world of
civilization. Her gratitude to enslavement is therefore understandable.

In America, Phillis Wheatley was introduced to Christianity. In Christanity, it is

stressed that Christ blessed the weak, the poor and the humble. This was a powerful and
comforting message for the slaves who had little hope of freedom or power in their lives.
Like many other slaves, Phillis Wheatley's enthusiasm and faith in Christianity can be
understood as a seek for reassurance and comfort.

Although this poem fails to genuinely reflect the agony of slaves in America, it itself
is a rebuttal to the argument that Africans were innately inferior to Europeans in an
intellectual sense. Europeans justified slavery by arguing that Africans were innately
inferior to Europeans in an intellectual sense. They argued that therefore it is reasonable
for Europeans to manipulate them. Being the first woman in America colonies to publish
poetic expressions on political events, Phillis Wheatley proved that Black people are also
capable of functioning intellectually like Europeans, the so-called superiors, if they
receive proper education like the Europeans do. This poem serves as a proof of the
inexistence of innate intellectual difference between Africans and Europeans.

Works Cited
Carson.C&Nash.G.B.&Lapsansky-Werner.E.J.(2005)African American Lives The
Struggle for Freedom. New York: Pearson Education