Events
- February 29, March 14 and April 18 - Susanna Wheatley attempts to get subscribers for a book of poems by her slave, Phillis Wheatley, by advertising in the Boston Censor, but the effort fails, largely because not enough readers believed that a black person had enough talent to write poetry.
- October 4 - Because many white people in colonial Massachusetts found it hard to believe that a black woman could have enough talent to write poetry, Phillis Wheatley was brought before a panel of eminent intellectuals in Boston who were gathered together to question her. The group included John Erving, Reverend Charles Chauncey, John Hancock, Thomas Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts, his lieutenant governor, Andrew Oliver, the Rev. Mather Byles, Joseph Green, the Rev. Samuel Cooper, James Bowdoin and Samuel Mather. They concluded she had in fact written the poems ascribed to her and signed an attestation which was added to the preface to her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral published in Aldgate, London in 1773 after printers in Boston refused to publish the text.
Read more about this topic: 1772 In Poetry
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