A lecture given by Jeanne Pickering, independent scholar of 18th century New England

Phillis Wheatley was a celebrated yet enslaved Revolutionary era poet and the first African-American woman published in America. Her poetry highlighted the causes of equality and freedom and was widely read in America and England by Patriot leaders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. In 1778, she married and little had been known about her life afterwards. New scholarship has revealed that the Peters family moved to Middleton with unexpected consequences. Jeanne Pickering explains the meaning of Wheatley-Peters’ poetry within the social and political aspects of her time and the extraordinary events that followed her move to Middleton. 

Jeanne Pickering is an independent scholar of eighteenth century New England slavery. She holds a MA in  History from Salem State University and is the Vice-President of the Topsfield Historical Society.