Six primary documents from 1773 to 1799. Each applies the founding era's own language — natural rights, no taxation without representation, the Declaration — to demand that it apply to the people it excluded. The documents are presented in chronological order. Each is at a confirmed institutional archive.
On January 6, 1773, a group of enslaved men from Boston and other Massachusetts towns addressed Governor Thomas Hutchinson, the King's Council, and the House of Representatives. The petition was delivered by a man identified only as Felix. The manuscript is at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
The humble Petition of many Slaves, living in the Town of Boston, and other Towns in the Province is this, namely That your Excellency and Honors, and the Honorable the Representatives would be pleased to take their unhappy State and Condition under your wise and just Consideration. We desire to bless God, who loves Mankind, who sent his Son to die for their Salvation, and who is no Respecter of Persons, that he hath lately put it into the Hearts of Multitudes on both Sides of the Water, to bear our Burthens, some of whom are Men of great Note and Influence; who have pleaded our Cause with Arguments which we hope will have their weight with this Honorable Court.
A second petition followed in June 1774, addressed to the new royal governor Thomas Gage and the Massachusetts legislature. The language shifts — the petitioners now apply the revolutionary argument directly. The manuscript is at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Your Petitioners apprehend, they have in common with other men, a natural right to be free and without molestation to injoy such Property as they may acquire by their industry, or by any other means not detrimental to their fellow men, and that no law of man can, without the greatest injustice, deprive them of, or obstruct them in the prosecution of this right.
Lemuel Haynes was born in 1753 to an African father and a white mother. He served as a Minuteman at Lexington and Concord, and traveled to Fort Ticonderoga in 1776. That same year, at age 23, he wrote an essay applying Jefferson's words directly to the question of slavery. The essay was never published in his lifetime. The manuscript was discovered in 1983 at Harvard's Houghton Library. The full transcript is at the Gilder Lehrman Institute and at Teaching American History.
That an African, or, in other terms, that a Negro may Justly Chalenge, and has an undeniable right to his Liberty: Consequently, the practise of Slave-keeping, which so much abounds in this Land is illicit. Every privilege that mankind Enjoy have their Origen from god; and whatever acts are passed in any Earthly Court, which are Derogatory to those Edicts that are passed in the Court of Heaven, the act is void.
On January 13, 1777 — six months after the Declaration of Independence was signed — Prince Hall and seven other men submitted a petition to the Massachusetts Council and House of Representatives. Hall had been freed in 1770 and was the founder of the first African American Masonic lodge. The manuscript copy is at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The official copy submitted to the legislature is at the Massachusetts Archives.
The petition of A Great Number of Blackes detained in a State of Slavery in the Bowels of a free and Christian Country Humbly shuwith that your Petitioners apprehend that they have in Common with all other men a Natural and Unaliable Right to that freedom which the Grat Parent of the Unavers hath Bestowed equalley on all menkind and which they have Never forfuted by any Compact or agreement whatever.
Paul Cuffe was born in 1759 to Kofi, an Ashanti man freed by a Quaker family, and Ruth Moses, a Wampanoag woman. In 1780 Paul and his brother John, along with five other men from Dartmouth, Massachusetts, petitioned the Massachusetts General Court. They refused to pay taxes, arguing they had no vote or influence in the election of those who taxed them. Cuffe was briefly jailed for non-payment. The petition is at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The petition of several poor negroes and mulattoes, who are inhabitants of the town of Dartmouth, humbly showeth — That we being chiefly of the African extract, and by reason of long bondage and hard slavery we have been deprived of enjoying the profits of our labour or the advantage of inheriting estates from our parents as our neighbours the white people do, having some of us not long since left the house of bondage we are willing to pay our proportionable part of all public taxes amongst our neighbours the white people and we are of the humble opinion that we have the right to enjoy the privileges of free men.
Absalom Jones was born into slavery in Delaware in 1746. He purchased his freedom in 1784. He became the first Black person ordained as a priest in the United States. On December 30, 1799 — three years before Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists — Jones and 70 other free Black men from Philadelphia petitioned the United States Congress. Pennsylvania Congressman Robert Waln introduced it on January 2, 1800. The petition is in the Records of the U.S. House of Representatives at the National Archives.
In the Constitution, and the Fugitive bill, no mention is made of Black people or Slaves — therefore if the Bill of Rights, or the declaration of Congress are of any validity, we beseech that as we are men, we may be admitted to partake of the Liberties and unalienable Rights therein held forth — firmly believing that the extending of Justice and equity to all Classes, would be a means of drawing down the blessings of Heaven upon this Land, for the restoration of Peace and Happiness.
Free African Society · Philadelphia · 1787 — Founded by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. Widely documented as the first Black civic institution of its kind in America. Primary founding documents have not been confirmed at a digitized institutional archive at the time this episode was built. The Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania may hold relevant records.
Free African Union Society · Newport, Rhode Island · 1780 — Documented as one of the earliest Black benevolent societies in America. Primary founding documents have not been confirmed at a digitized institutional archive at the time this episode was built. The Rhode Island Historical Society may hold relevant records.
Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker · 1781–1783 — Both sued for freedom under the Massachusetts Constitution and won. Their cases led to the legal abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. Case records are at the Massachusetts Historical Society. These legal cases are documented in the same MHS collection linked above and may be covered in a separate episode on the Massachusetts Constitution and abolition.
The channel's standard: present what is confirmed at an institutional archive with a live URL. Document what is not confirmed and why. The archive for all three remains open.