She was called Phillis, because that was the name of the ship that brought her, and Wheatley, which was the name of a merchant who bought her. 
I was born in Senegal.

At thirteen, she was already writing poems in a language that wasn't her own. No one believed she was the author. At twenty years old, Phillis was questioned by a court of eighteen illustrious gentlemen in togs and wigs.

She had to recite texts from Virgil and Milton and some messages from the Bible, and she also had to swear that the poems she had written were not plagiarized. 

From a chair, she gave up her long exam, until the court accepted her: she was a woman, she was black she was a slave, but she was a poet.

Phillis Wheatley, was the first African-American author to publish a book in the United States.
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