Phillis Wheatley Passes Examination by Eighteen Boston Scholars

Before her book can be published in London, Phillis Wheatley is examined by a panel of 18 prominent Boston men, including John Hancock and the governor's lieutenant, to verify that an enslaved girl actually authored the poems. She passes the examination. The attestation published in her 1773 book is itself a document of both her genius and her society's disbelief.