Phillis Wheatley was born, most likely in 1753, in the area of Africa that is now Senegal and the Gambia. At around the age of seven, she was captured by enslavers headed for the Americas and endured the horrific Middle Passage. She was brought to the then-colony of Massachusetts, enslaved and put up for sale; she was sold, in 1761, to Susanna Wheatley, wife of a tailor, who was looking for a domestic servant. Phillis was horribly ill at that time; the trader who sold her believed that she would die and was simply trying to make a quick profit. However, the Wheatleys found Phillis (named for the ship on which she was transported) to be terribly precocious, and Susanna Wheatley soon...
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