The Petition of a Great Number of Blacks, Freemen of this Commonwealth
Son of a white father and free black woman, Prince Hall (1735–1807) came to Boston from Barbados at age seventeen and worked as a leather craftsman. A leader in the black community, Hall petitioned the Massachusetts government repeatedly from 1777 through the 1790s on issues arising from racial discrimination. Here, Hall protests crimes that would later recur under the federal fugitive slave acts.
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To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in General Court assembled, on the 27th February, 1788;
The Petition of a great number of Blacks, freemen of this Commonwealth, humbly sheweth;
That your petitioners are justly alarmed at the inhuman and cruel treatment that three of our brethren, free citizens of the town of Boston, lately received. The Captain, under pretence that his vessel was in distress on an Island below in this harbor, having got them on board, put them in irons, and carried them off from their wives and children, to be sold for slaves. This being the unhappy state of these poor men, what can your petitioners expect but to be treated to the same manner by the same sort of men? What then are our lives and liberties worth, if they may be taken away in such a cruel and unjust manner as this? May it please your Honors, we are not insensible that the good laws of this State forbid all such bad actions; notwithstanding we can assure your Honors, that many of our free Blacks that have entered on board of vessels as seamen, have been sold as slaves, and some of them we have heard from, but know not who carried them away. Hence it is, that many of us, who are good seamen, are obliged to stay at home through fear, and the one-half of our time, loiter about the streets, for want of employ; whereas, if they were protected in that lawful calling, they might get a handsome livelihood for themselves and theirs, which in the situation they are now in, they cannot. One thing more we would beg leave to hint, that is, that your petitioners have for some time past, beheld with grief, ships cleared out from this harbor for Africa, and they either steal our brothers and sisters, fill their ship-holds full of unhappy men and women, crowded together, then set out for the best market to sell them there, like sheep for slaughter, and then return here like honest men, after having sported with the lives and liberty of their fellow-men, and at the same time call themselves Christians. Blush, O Heavens, at this! These, our weighty grievances, we cheerfully submit to your Honors, without dictating in the least, knowing by experience that your Honors have, and we trust ever will, in your wisdom, do us that justice that our present condition requires, as God and the good laws of this Commonwealth shall dictate to you.
As in duty bound, your petitioners shall ever pray.
PRINCE HALL.
| PRIMUS HALL. | JOHN COOPER. | |
| BRITTON BALCH. | JOSEPH HICKS. | |
| CYRUS FORBES. | JAMES HICKS. | |
| THOMAS SANDERSON. | GEORGE MILLER. | |
| LANCASTER HILL. | JAMES HOOKER. | |
| CATO UNDERWOOD. | MATHEW COX. | |
| SHARPEA GARDNER. | CATO GRAY. | |
| JUBA HILL. | ROBERT JACKSON. | |
| RICHARD POLLARD. | JOHN KING. | |
| WILLIAM SMITH. | BOSTON BULLARD. | |
| JAMES BALL. | JOHN MATLOCK. |