ICAR Research Data Repository for Knowledge Management

Petition subject: Slaves

Original: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:13909089

Date of creation: 1778-07-14

Petition location: Boston

Selected signatures:

1. Joseph Johnson

Actions taken on dates: 1778-07-20

Legislative action: Received in the Council on July 20, 1778 and read and ordered and read and accepted

Total signatures: 1

Legislative action summary: Received, read, ordered, read, accepted

Males of color signatures: 1

Female only signatures: No

Identifications of signatories: a free negro man, [males of color]

Prayer format was printed vs. manuscript: Manuscript

Additional archivist notes: born free, Jamaica, Great Britain, London, ship Docking, John Foster commander, American ship of war Portsmouth commanded by Captain Hart, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, threatened to be sold and sent to Albany as a slave [see Resolves 1776-1777, chapter 324, Resolve Forbidding the Sale of Negro Captives, passed September 16, 1776]

Location of the petition at the Massachusetts Archives of the Commonwealth: Massachusetts Archives volume 168, pages 445-445a

Acknowledgements: Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-5105612), Massachusetts Archives of the Commonwealth, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, Institutional Development Initiative at Harvard University, and Harvard University Library.