Phillis Wheatley: The Enslaved Girl Who Put America On Trial

Before America declared its independence, before the ink dried on any founding document, a young girl from West Africa arrived in Boston on a slave ship called Phillis. She was about seven or eight years old. On the auction block, she was purchased by the Wheatley family and given their name. In a town that prided itself on liberty, Phillis Wheatley entered as property. What makes her story so startling is what happened next. Instead of being kept from books, Phillis was taught to read and write in the Wheatley household. She learned Latin and the classics, studied the Bible, and began composing verse. Her poetry soon drew attention on both sides of the Atlantic. But as her talent became undeniable, so did the discomfort of the world around her: could an enslaved Black girl really have written such sophisticated work?

Phillis Wheatley on trial in Boston

Boston’s answer was to put her voice on trial.

In 1772, a group of prominent men; governors, merchants, ministers, leaders of this “cradle of liberty” gathered to question her. They examined her, her manuscripts, her learning. Their signed statement, printed at the front of her 1773 book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was essentially a legal affidavit: yes, Phillis Wheatley is, in fact, the author. Her words had to be certified before they could be believed. She lived at the heart of a revolution that shouted “liberty!” while keeping her in bondage. She praised “freedom” in verse while her own freedom was precarious. If anyone understood what it meant to have her voice tested, doubted, and weighed against the comfort of those in power, it was Phillis Wheatley.

Phillis Wheatley posting a Broadside to close the show

Why Phillis Wheatley Opens and Closes Broadside the Musical

In Broadside the Musical, we open our show with a nod to John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, a rough-and-tumble piece of theatre that stole familiar tunes and slipped new words beneath them. It was popular, subversive, and a little bit dangerous: songs you already knew, carrying ideas you might not be ready to hear. That’s exactly the energy we want for Broadside. So we imagine Phillis Wheatley as our “Beggar,” the one who steps out first, talks directly to the actor, and teaches the audience how to listen. She explains that this is not opera for dukes and chandeliers, but for streets, taverns, and taprooms. She reminds us that you can muzzle a sermon, but not a song. And she quietly tells her own truth: she came to Boston in chains, learned her letters, and then watched as powerful men literally sat in judgment over her ability to write. In other words, she knows what it is to have your voice put on trial.

That’s why she is the perfect figure to frame a story about broadsides, pamphlets, and the noisy birth of American public opinion. Broadside the Musical is about how ideas were printed, sung, argued, and nailed to tavern doors. It’s about who gets to speak and who has to fight to be heard. Placing Phillis Wheatley at the threshold of the show, as the Beggar who opens and closes our tale, feels deeply apropos. She embodies the contradictions of the era: a young Black woman, enslaved in a city shouting about freedom, using poetry to insist on her humanity. As she guides us into this “beggar’s opera” of American beginnings, she reminds us that liberty and equality are measured not just in laws and battles, but in whose words make it to the page, the stage, and the public square. In Broadside, Phillis Wheatley gets the first word, and the last, because the fight for freedom of speech and the right to be heard didn’t start with the Founders. It started with voices like hers, refusing to stay silent.