The Value of
Black History is on the Rise
Letter by 18th-Century ex-slave
poet, Phillis Wheatley, Fetches Record Price
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A handwritten and signed letter dated
February 14, 1776, by Phillis Wheatley, a former Boston slave
and the author of the first book of poetry published by an
African American, brought a record-setting $253,000 at auction
on November 22, 2005. The letter, one of only twenty now known
to exist, had a pre-auction estimate of $80,000 to $120,000.
This price was the highest ever paid at auction for a letter
written by an African American, and appears to have set an
auction record for a letter written by a woman, said Jeremy Markowitz, an autograph specialist at
Swann Galleries in New
York, which sold it. Miss Wheatley, who had fled Boston for
Providence owing to the occupation of the former town by the
British Army during the American Revolution, wrote the letter to
her still-enslaved friend, Obour Tanner of Newport, R.I., and
briefly opines about the conflict of which she stated, “Even
I a mere spectator am in anxious suspense concerning the fortune
of this unnatural civil contest.” The new owner of the letter remains anonymous for the
present, according to Swann Galleries.
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