 Massachusetts also petitioned the Committees of Correspondence in March 1775 for assistance in obtaining their freedom, and the Worcester County Convention responded by passing a resolution that “we abhor the enslaving of any of the human race, and particularly of the Negroes in this country. And that whenever there shall be a door opened, or opportunity present, for anything to be done toward emancipating the Negroes: we will use our influence and endeavor that such a thing may be effected.”133
Some Black and white abolitionists penned broader appeals that addressed not just their state assemblies but the general public, too.
Though she was a devout Christian owned by exceptionally doting masters in Boston, the African-American child prodigy and poetess Phillis Wheatley nonetheless began inserting subtle pleas for emancipation into her work by 1772. This young slave, the first published Black poet in North America, recognized the powerful symbolic ties between America’s cause and the cause of freedom for her people.
She wrote verse directed at King George III to request a repeal of the Stamp Act, decried a British customs officer who murdered a Boston teenager, and wrote a poem praising George Washington, to which Washington responded with a hand-written letter humbly thanking her.134
Wheatley followed the classical poetic conventions of her time, but incorporated an unmistakable message in her lines, as when she celebrated:
The silken reigns, and Freedom’s charms unfold.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain.135
Wheatley also reminded her readers that—as a slave—”can I then but pray / Others may never feel tyrannic sway?”136
Such eloquent appeals weren’t exclusively the product of well-known child prodigies. An anonymous New England mulatto—then a term for a person who was half white and half Black—penned an attack on slavery in 1776 that quoted the Declaration of Independence (“that all men are created Equal”) and the Bible (“make of one Blood all nations of men, for to dwell upon the face of the Earth”) to make a very persuasive case against human bondage.137
Our Nations’ First TRUE Patriots
Thanks to Bob Aldrich for sharing this
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
For the record, here’s a portrait of the men who pledged “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” for liberty many years ago.
Fifty-six men from each of the original 13 colonies signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Nine of the signers were immigrants, two were brothers and two were cousins. One was an orphan. The average age of a signer was 45. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest delegate at 70. The youngest was Thomas Lynch Jr. of South Carolina at 27.
Eighteen of the signers were merchants or businessmen, 14 were farmers, and four were doctors. Twenty-two were lawyers – although William Hooper of North Carolina was “disbarred” when he spoke out against the king – and nine were judges. Stephen Hopkins had been governor of Rhode Island. Forty-two signers had served in their colonial legislatures.
John Witherspoon of New Jersey was the only active clergyman to attend. (Indeed, he wore his pontificals to the sessions.) Almost all were Protestants. Charles Carroll of Maryland was the lone Roman Catholic.
Seven of the signers were educated at Harvard, four at Yale, four at William & Mary, and three at Princeton. Witherspoon was the president of Princeton, and George Wythe was a professor at William & Mary. His students included Declaration scribe Thomas Jefferson.
Seventeen signers fought in the American Revolution. Thomas Nelson was a colonel in the Second Virginia Regiment and then commanded Virginia military forces at the Battle of Yorktown. William Whipple served with the New Hampshire militia and was a commanding officer in the decisive Saratoga campaign. Oliver Wolcott led the Connecticut regiments sent for the defense of New York and commanded a brigade of militia that took part in the 