Emancipation Rhetoric, Natural Rights, and Revolutionary New England: A Note on Four Black Petitions in Massachusetts, 1773-1777

Abstract

APPROXIMATELY 16,000 strong in New England on the eve of the American Revolution, blacks made celebrated efforts for the patriot cause at arms. The bravery of Peter Salem and Salem Poor at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775 became the stuff of legend. Other blacks like them-men such as Alexander Ames, Caesar Brown, Titus Colburn, Grant Cooper, Caesar Dickerson, Prince Hall, Cuff Hayes, Barzillai Lew, Sampson Talbert, and Cato Tufts-helped sustain the patriot cause in Massachusetts, which in 1776 held 5,249 blacks clustered mostly in the contiguous counties of Essex, Middlesex, and Suffolk, where Boston sat.'