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Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution PDF

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SLAVERY, PROPAGANDA, and the AMERICAN REVOLUTION Patricia Bradley Copyright © 1998 by University Press of Mississippi All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Print-on-Demand Edition The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bradley, Patricia, 1941– Slavery, propaganda, and the American Revolution / Patricia Bradley p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 1-57806-052-4 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 1-57806-211-X (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Propaganda. 2. United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Afro-Americans. 3. Press and propaganda—United States—History—18th century. 4. Antislavery movements—United States—History—18th century. 5. Slavery—United States—History—18th century. I. Title. E210.B73 1998 973.3′88—dc21 98-12915 CIP British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data available Portions of the following have appeared in “Slavery in Colonial Newspapers: The Somerset Case,” Journalism History 12 (Spring 1985): 1–7, and “The Boston Gazette and Slavery as Revolutionary Propaganda,” Journalism Quarterly 72 (Autumn 1995): 581–96. Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution Contents Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction CHAPTER 1 The Metaphor of Slavery CHAPTER 2 Slave Advertising: The Colonial Context CHAPTER 3 Flames for the Cause CHAPTER 4 The Somerset Case CHAPTER 5 The Voices of Antislavery CHAPTER 6 Shame and Guilt in the Garden of the Innocent CHAPTER 7 The Newspaper Debate CHAPTER 8 Insurrection CONCLUSION Propaganda and Patriotism Works Cited Index Acknowledgments My thanks go in several quarters: to Temple University for a Summer Research Award; to my university colleagues, with special gratitude to the faculty associated with the American Studies Program; to the University Press of Mississippi; to Marie F. Bradley; to my children, Anna C. Bradley and Colin C. Bradley; and to Laurien D. Ward, whose love and support made the book possible and to whom this volume is dedicated. Abbreviations A Almanac AWM American Weekly Mercury (Philadelphia) BC Boston Chronicle BEP Boston Evening-Post BG Boston Gazette Boston Gazette, or Weekly Journal Boston Gazette, or Country Country Boston Gazette, and Country Journal Boston Gazette, or Weekly Advertiser BNL Boston News-Letter Boston Weekly News-Letter BPB Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser Boston Weekly Post-Boy CC Connecticut Courant (Hartford) Connecticut Courant, and Hartford Weekly Intelligencer CG Connecticut Gazette (New Haven) CG-NL Connecticut Gazette, and the Universal Intelligencer (New London) CH Christian History CJ Connecticut Journal, and New-Haven Post Boy ConJ Continental Journal (Boston) EG Essex Gazette (Salem, Mass.) New-England Chronicle, or the Essex Gazette EJ Essex Journal, and Merrimack Packet, or the Massachusetts and New-Hampshire General Advertiser (Newburyport, Mass.) Essex Journal, or the New-Hampshire Packet FJ Freeman’s Journal (Philadelphia) GG Georgia Gazette GM Gentleman’s Magazine (London) HSP Historical Society of Pennsylvania IC Independent Chronicle (Boston) MG Maryland Gazette (Annapolis) MG&BN Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter MG&BPB Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser MS Massachusetts Spy, or Thomas’s Boston Journal Massachusetts Spy, or American Oracle of Liberty (Worcester) NEC New England Courant NEJ New England Journal NEWJ New-England Weekly Journal NJG New Jersey Gazette NJJ New Jersey Journal NLG New-London Gazette NM Newport Mercury, or the Weekly Advertiser NP Norwich Packet, and the Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island Weekly Advertiser NYEP New-York Evening-Post NYG New-York Gazette, and the Weekly Mercury NYJ New-York Journal, or the General Advertiser PC Pennsylvania Chronicle, and Universal Advertiser PEP Pennsylvania Evening Post PG Pennsylvania Gazette PJ Pennsylvania Journal, or the Weekly Advertiser PM Pennsylvania Mercury, and the Universal Advertiser PP Pennsylvania Packet, or the General Advertiser ProvG Providence Gazette RNY Rivington’s New York Gazetteer SCAMG South-Carolina and American General Gazette SCG South-Carolina Gazette United States Chronicle: Political, Commerical, and Historical USC (Providence, R.I.) VG-Dixon Virginia Gazette VG-Dixon and Virginia Gazette Hunter VG-Pickney Virginia Gazette VG-Pickney and Virginia Gazette Dixon VG-Purdie Virginia Gazette VG-Purdie and Virginia Gazette Dixon WNYG Weyman’s New York Gazette Note: Since several Virginia Gazettes were published at the same time, they have been differentiated by their publishers. Introduction In 1764, the Boston lawyer and firebrand James Otis transcended his local reputation and parochial interests to publish the first major pamphlet of the revolutionary era. In a theme that would come to define the American Revolution, Otis argued against taxing measures on the basis of colonists’ natural rights. But in another theme that would not take hold with the same tenacity, Otis was led to ask: “Does it follow that ’tis right to enslave a man because he is black? Will short curl’d hair like wool, instead of christian hair, as ’tis called by those whose hearts are as hard as the nether millstone, help the argument? Can any logical inference in favour of slavery be drawn from a flat nose, a long or a short face?” (Otis 29). Otis was among the cadre of colonial Americans whose call to freedom did not ignore those who were unfree in the American colonies. A growing antislavery movement existed in secular and religious circles in the decades before the American Revolution and included such resolute patriots as Virginian Arthur Lee, Bostonians John Allen, Nathaniel Appleton, William Gordon, and Philadelphians Benjamin Rush and Thomas Paine. Antislavery sentiment was also heard in private patriot circles. In a long-remembered letter to John Adams, newly arrived in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress, Abigail Adams wrote: “I wish most sincerely there was not a Slave in the province… It always appeared a most iniquitous Scheme to me— fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have” (Adams Family 1:161–62). Antislavery activity in Massachusetts had been responsible for attempts at antislavery legislation in 1767, 1771, and 1777. Although not successful in Massachusetts, antislavery legislation of some degree was passed in several colonies, including Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, before independence, and there was a veritable rush to abolition by the end of the Revolution. Accompanied by a vigorous public debate, eight northern states abolished slavery between 1777 and 1804, Vermont not even waiting for the conclusion of the war (G. Moore, Zilversmit). But neither the existence of antislavery activity during the revolutionary period nor antislavery legislation at the end of the Revolution should be equated with the position of the patriots or their propaganda. Indeed, those patriots who had voiced antislavery sentiment were not among the leaders of the larger antislavery movement, choosing to subsume their antislavery activities to other forms of participation in the American Revolution. The survival of abolitionist thought into the new republic had more to do with the ability of its nonpatriot adherents to keep the flame alive than with the approval of patriots or the support given to antislavery by the propagandists of the American Revolution. Antislavery did not become a patriot cause. Instead, revolutionary propagandists chose to transform slavery into a metaphor to represent the level at which the British regarded the American colonists. As a result of this metaphor, I suggest that the legacy of American revolutionary propaganda vis-à-vis slavery was not a commitment to abolition at the earliest opportunity, a traditional defense given for the compromises of the founding fathers (Rossiter 231), but rather helped transfer into the new republic long-standing white attitudes toward black colonists. Despite the early successes of abolition in northern states, it needs to be

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