Conjuring Columbia : Phillis Wheatley’s Goddess, Miranda’s Colombia, and Hemispheric Limits on Imagining Armed People of Color, 1775–1807

Abstract Why is “Colombia,” in South America, not spelled “Columbia”? And what can the largely forgotten history behind this orthographic divergence reveal? Two remarkable figures from the Age of Revolutions, Phillis Wheatley and Francisco de Miranda, are rarely considered together to answer these questions. After publishing her first book of poetry in 1773, Wheatley gained freedom from slavery and dedicated a poem to General George Washington, who had it published in 1776. Her poem was the first to fully personify through mythic allegory the golden-haired goddess “Columbia,” who subtly called in armies (inclusive of people of color) to win freedom from Britannia. Wheatley’s poetic moves galvanized a US audience. By 1784, when Miranda claimed to have met Wheatley in Boston, Columbia was everywhere, yet few attributed the goddess to Wheatley’s poetic prowess, and most ignored Wheatley’s careful deployment of Columbia’s inclusive army. Realizing “Columbia’s” value as shorthand for New World independence, Miranda plucked “Columbia” from the North American context and adjusted her name to Spanish-language spelling conventions. Miranda’s linguistic move, given “Columbia’s” already existing popularity, helped him gain transatlantic notoriety for “Colombian” independence from Spain. Delving into eighteenth–nineteenth-century poetry, correspondence, and print culture demonstrates how Wheatley’s “Columbia” inspired Miranda’s “Colombia,” and, in turn, how this poetic geopolitical vision helped make thinkable transatlantic imaginaries of freedom. For both Wheatley and Miranda, their Columbian/Colombian imaginaries included people of color among the ranks of her liberating armies, yet their calls for inclusion required careful calibration (and at times erasure).