Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution

167 Pages·1999·0.924 MB·English

by  Patricia Bradley

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