On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley (Poem #6)

'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.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

"Their colour is a diabolic die."

Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,

May be refin'd, and join th' angelic TRAIN."

I really liked this poem, and I believe I’ve read it before somewhere as well. I think the narrator is really trying trying to emphasize that when he came to Africa, he was not welcomed; there was still racism and inequality, and he could not understand why. If they had the same religion, why were they seen as so different? Their color was seen as evil, as the narrator has quoted (what has been said about his race), “Their colour is a diabolic die.” What the narrator is trying to comprehend is why their color is seen as evil, when they believe in a religion like everybody else, a similarity they all have but are seen as different. Just because they are black does not mean they do not still join the rest of the whites on the same religion, which is referred to as an ‘angelic train’ by the narrator. The fact that the narrator used the word ‘sable’ to describe his race is implying a bigger meaning; the definition of sable is a marten with a short tail and dark brown fur and is valued for its fur, similar to how their race was only valued for slavery. Also, the narrator described his own soul as ‘benighted’, which means ‘overtaken by darkness’, which is probably what the racist people thought of them overall. I really liked how this poem implied so much more than a reader would think; it explained how they felt when they were rejected, and explained what the whites depicted them as.