a thrifty and progressive class of mixed breeds, many of whom at that time had the privileges and immunities of freemen.  Durham was not long in acquiring a rudimentary education, and soon learned several modern languages, speaking English, French, and Spanish fluently.  Beginning his medical education early in his career, he finished his course, and by the time he was twenty-one years of age became one of the most distinguished physicians[1] of New Orleans.  Dr. Benjamin Rush, the noted physician of Philadelphia, who was educated at the Edinburgh Medical College, once deigned to converse professionally with Dr. Durham.  “I learned more from him than he could expect from me,” was the comment of the Philadelphian upon a conversation in which he had thought to appear as instructor of the younger physician.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Brissot de Warville, New Travels, vol. i., p. 223.]

[Footnote 2:  Baldwin, Observations, etc., p. 17.]

Most prominent among these brainy persons of color were Phyllis Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker.  The former was a slave girl brought from Africa in 1761 and put to service in the household of John Wheatley of Boston.  There, without any training but that which she obtained from her master’s family, she learned in sixteen months to speak the English language fluently, and to read the most difficult parts of sacred writings.  She had a great inclination for Latin and made some progress in the study of that language.  Led to writing by curiosity, she was by 1765 possessed of a style which enabled her to count among her correspondents some of the most influential men of her time.  Phyllis Wheatley’s title to fame, however, rested not on her general attainments as a scholar but rather on her ability to write poetry.  Her poems seemed to have such rare merit that men marveled that a slave could possess such a productive imagination, enlightened mind, and poetical genius.  The publishers were so much surprised that they sought reassurance as to the authenticity of the poems from such persons as James Bowdoin, Harrison Gray, and John Hancock.[1] Glancing at her works, the modern critic would readily say that she was not a poetess, just as the student of political economy would dub Adam Smith a failure as an economist.  A bright college freshman who has studied introductory economics can write a treatise as scientific as the Wealth of Nations.  The student of history, however, must not “despise the day of small things.”  Judged according to the standards of her time, Phyllis Wheatley was an exceptionally intellectual person.

[Footnote 1:  Baldwin, Observations, etc., p. 18; Wright, Poems of Phyllis Wheatley, Introduction.]