Civics Collection
Searching for Equality: Debating the Founding Principles

The Seeds of Emancipation

In the 1780s and 1790s, some enslavers in Virginia and Maryland voluntarily emancipated enslaved people, but the call for abolition never expanded further south. Throughout northern states, especially New England, freedom petitions became a common practice that was based on English common law. Freedom petitions were legal documents that enslaved people submitted to either courts or the state legislature to request their freedom. Enslaved people signed these petitions, linking their cries for freedom to those of the Revolution. Pennsylvania passed the first Gradual Abolition Act in 1780. 


In 1773, Prince Hall, a free Black man living in Boston, submitted a petition to the state legislature calling for the end of slavery in Massachusetts. Four years later, Hall used the Declaration of Independence, with its call for natural rights, to write a new petition on behalf of seven enslaved Black men. While this second petition also failed, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 1783 that slavery was unconstitutional. 
n image of a torn historic document with faded cursive script.

Petition to the Massachusetts Legislature (1777).

TAKE NOTES

Read Prince Hall's abridged 1777 Petition to the Massachusetts Legislature and answer the questions.
+-
1777 Petition to the Massachusetts Legislature (abridged)
+-

January 13, 1777 

[We understand] that [we] have, in common with all other men, a natural & unalienable right to that freedom, which [God has given] equally [to] all, and which [we] have never [given up in] any [contract] or agreement. . . .

But [we] were unjustly dragged, by the cruel hand of power, from [our] dearest friends, & some of [us] even torn from the embraces of [our] tender parents. . . and . . . brought [here] to be sold like beasts of burden, & like them condemned to slavery for Life. . . . 

[E]very principle from which America has acted in the course of her unhappy difficulties with Great Britain pleads stronger than a thousand arguments in favor of [us]. 

[We] therefore humbly [beg] your honors, to [consider] this petition, & [pass a law] whereby [slaves] may be restored to the enjoyment of that [freedom] which is the natural right of all men—and their children who were born in this land of liberty may not be held as slaves after they arrive at the age of twenty-one years. 

Lancaster Hill          Peter Bess           Brister Slenten           Prince Hall           Jack Purpont (his mark) 

Nero Suneto (his mark)                      Newport Symner (his mark)                   Job Lock

GBH Logo