Phillis Wheatley was enslaved at the age of eight, is widely known as the first African-American woman in United States history to have her poetry published. Constant themes in Wheatley’s poems are death, religion, and the struggle of Blacks in the U.S. Wheatley also composed many poems that are a type of tribute to admirable figures or influential persons in her life. Wheatley traveled to London and back, with flexibility rare to other enslaved persons, and held an audience with the Lord Mayor of London as well as other delegates. Wheatley’s works, at the time, were respected in the realm of literature and impressed all who did not believe a young slave could produce such works.