TEXT: Wheatley, “On Being Brought From Africa” (1773)
- Eight line poem in heroic couplets with iambic pentameter
- Published as part of a volume of poetry entitled Poems on Various Subjects –the first by an African American author– in London in 1773
TEXT: Adams, Letters (1776)
- Abigail and John Adams exchanged two private letters in March and April 1776; the excerpts provided here focus on Abigail Adams’s advice to her husband about the need for making any “Code of Laws” in their new country more “generous” toward women and John Adams’s teasing but perhaps also uneasy response
TEXT: Jefferson, Declaration (1776)
- Thomas Jefferson chaired the committee that produced the Declaration in early summer 1776; he was the principal author of the document that contained three sections: preamble, grievances against the King or “train of abuses,” and the resolution for independence
- The Second Continental Congress voted for Independence on July 2 and approved the Declaration (as amended) on July 4; the final document was not “engrossed” (or written formally in parchment) and ready for signatures until early August 1776