Old Hill Burying Ground, Concord MA

John JackGod wills us freeMan wills us slavesGods will be done

Here lies the body of John Jack, Native of Africa. Who died March 1773Aged about sixty yearsTho' born in a land of slavesHe was born freeTho' he lived in a land of libertyHe lived a slave, Till by his honest tho' stolen labourHe acquired the source of slaveryWhich gave him his freedom; Tho' not long beforeDeath the grand tyrantgave him his final emancipation, and put him on a footing with kingsTho' a slave to viceHe practiced those virtuesWithout which kings are but slaves.

Stamp Act, 1765• Introduced to help pay for the costs of

defending and protecting American frontier

• Colonists required to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used e.g. newspapers, legal documents, licenses, playing cards

• Dangerous precedent: taxes and duties on colonial trade had always been viewed as measures to regulate commerce, not to raise money

• “no taxation without representation”• Colonial resistance: boycotts, street

protests• Stamp Act Congress: Declaration of Rights

and Grievances

Chronology of Imperial Crisis• 1765: Stamp Act• 1766: Declaratory Act • 1767: Townshend Duties• 1768: British troops arrive in Boston in response to the political unrest• 1770: Boston Massacre• 1773: Tea Act and Boston Tea Party• 1774: Intolerable Acts• 1774: Continental Congress• 1775: Battles of Lexington and Concord• 1775: Battle of Bunker Hill• 1775: Olive Branch Petition• 1776: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is published• 1776: Declaration of Independence

Boston Massacre, 1770

Chronology of Imperial Crisis• 1765: Stamp Act• 1766: Declaratory Act • 1767: Townshend Duties• 1768: British troops arrive in Boston in response to the political unrest• 1770: Boston Massacre• 1773: Tea Act and Boston Tea Party• 1774: Intolerable Acts• 1774: Continental Congress• 1775: Battles of Lexington and Concord• 1775: Battle of Bunker Hill• 1775: Olive Branch Petition• 1776: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is published• 1776: Declaration of Independence

African-American Loyalists• 1774: Slaves in Mass. offer services to

General Cage in return for their freedom

• 1775: Dunmore’s Proclamation and creation of Ethiopian Regiment – “Liberty to Slaves”

• 1779: Philipsburg Proclamation• African Americans generally employed

as labourers, skilled workers, servants – did not usually serve in the Army unless necessary

• At the end of the war, British transported 20,000 African Americans from U.S. – some given manumission certificates and taken to Nova Scotia (Book of Negroes)

African-American Patriots• Americans (partic. New

Englanders) allowed slaves to serve in militia in times of crisis

• Prince Eastabrook injured at Lexington

• Washington banned African Americans from Continental Army in 1775, but manpower shortages forced Congress to accept black troops in 1777

• Free African Americans and slaves served in mixed regiments

• Slaves who enlisted received their freedom in return for service

"How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?" - Samuel Johnson, 1775

African Americans in the North• Better able to reconcile the rhetoric of the

Revolution with the practice of slavery because they were not slave societies.

• Some colonial assemblies had attempted to limit slavery in 1760s and 1770s

• African American slaves in Massachusetts active in petitioning for freedom or bringing lawsuits to court

• Every northern state abolished slavery or initiated emancipation – still 75 slaves in NJ in 1850

African Americans in the South

Upper South• Wartime disruption, confusion and loss

of authority gave many slaves the opportunity to run away

• Virginia, Maryland, Delaware relaxed manumission laws – freed thousands

• War undermined struggling tobacco economy and thereby contributed to surplus of slaves– increase in private manumissions– reduction of African imports– relaxation of slave regime

• opportunity for male slaves to engage in skilled occupations

• increase in slaves hired out

Lower South• Wartime disruption, confusion and loss

of authority gave many slaves the opportunity to run away (SC lost 30% slave population)

• Increase in owner absenteeism• Increase in African imports • Development of distinctive African-

American culture

Federal Constitution

• Neither “slaves” nor “slavery” is mentioned in the Constitution – “all other persons”

• Three-fifths clause (Article 1, Section 2)

• Congress prohibited from banning the slave trade until 1808 (Article 1, Section 9)

• Fugitive Slave clause (Article 4, Section 2)