Later published as An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of Kuala Lumpur Metro Map that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield Boston Kuala Lumpur Metro Map : printed and sold by Ezekiel Russell and John Boyles, 1770. On Being Brought from Africa to Country early 1770s Internationally recognized even in her own lifetime, the African-born poet Phillis Wheatley was the slave of Boston tailor John Wheatley until he freed her in 1773. That same year, her first book of poetry was published in London. In the following poem, Wheatley says it was mercy that brought her from a pagan land Africa to one where she could learn of Christianity.
Some scholars have argued that Wheatley, while seeming to endorse her forced transport to Country, was, in fact, using irony to comment on a situation that brought her to slavery but also to her cherished Christian faith. Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
