Cultivating Curiosity: Phillis Wheatley in Newport – Michael Monescalchi

To more imaginatively engage with the early American archive, I think that we should go into every archive—and approach every text we read—without any kind of wishful thinking. Instead, we should be open-minded and curious about what we uncover. One of the ways that I’ve been able to enhance my curiosity is to move beyond the individual writers I research and learn more about the communities they belonged to and wrote about. My research into Phillis Wheatley’s life and writings has thus benefitted, in an unexpected and seemingly counterintuitive way, from my shifting away from her.

Figure 1. Image of the frontispiece and title page to Phillis Wheatley’s *Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral* (1773). In her 7 February 1774 letter to Samuel Hopkins, Wheatley thanked him for ordering twenty copies of this volume for various Newport residents, including her friend and correspondent Obour Tanner. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. “Frontispiece and title page” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

There are two under-read Wheatley documents that I continue to have questions about: her two surviving letters to the white abolitionist-theologian Samuel Hopkins. By the time they began corresponding with each other in 1774, Wheatley and Hopkins had both published texts that critiqued slavery. Wheatley wrote her famed antislavery letter to Samson Occom (Mohegan/Brothertown) less than a month after she first wrote to Hopkins. Why, then, was there no mention of slavery in either of Wheatley’s letters to Hopkins? Rather than be disappointed by this omission, I started to think more productively about these letters on their own terms, wondering: why did Hopkins buy twenty copies of Wheatley’s Poems (1773)? And what was this African missionary project that Wheatley refused to be a part of?

Figure 2. A print of Samuel Hopkins, theologian and antislavery reformer, which is based on an undated portrait of him housed in Boston’s Congregational Library. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Samuel Hopkins, D.D.” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Upon asking these questions, I realized that I needed to learn more. When searching through Hopkins’ papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, I was excited to find an unpublished manuscript on the missionary project: “A Narrative of the Rise and Progress of a Proposal to Attempt to Send the Gospel to Guinea.” While reading through this document, I hoped to come across something about Wheatley: a brief mention, an extended discussion of why she didn’t want to participate in the project, or something even better and unexpected. Unfortunately, this was not the case: Wheatley was not named and did not make any other kind of legible appearance. But rather than be disappointed by Wheatley’s absence—or participate in the wishful thinking methodology I mentioned above—I asked a new set of questions: who were the Black missionaries Hopkins described? Who were their supporters? Wheatley knew some of these people (like John Quamine), but did she know more of them? Did these people have stories to tell?

Figure 3. “The Parade.” This painting depicts what is now called Washington Square in Newport, Rhode Island and what was in the early nineteenth century called The Parade. This park area is less than a half-mile away from the First Congregational Church where Wheatley’s correspondents Samuel Hopkins ministered and Obour Tanner worshipped. “The Parade,” Unknown, ca. 1818, Painting, oil on canvas, Newport Historical Society.

It was because I was curious about Hopkins’ failed missionary project that I was able to return to Wheatley’s archive with more knowledge of her theology, friendships, and print distribution networks. Through this cross-archival research process, I realized that Hopkins had placed the largest known order of Wheatley’s Poems so that Black Newporters could read her poetry. Wheatley was connected to this community through her correspondent Obour Tanner, who was also a parishioner at Hopkins’ church. There are more personal relationships to untangle and historical connections to be curious about. But in the meantime, I will follow Hopkins’ lead and continue thinking of Wheatley in relation to the communities of which she was a part.

Michael Monescalchi is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the English Department and Writing Program. He is working on a project on race, republicanism, and evangelicalism in early America.