"In Massachusetts, a combination of slaves suing for their individual emancipation, an organized slave petition drive, black soldiers fighting against the British, a state constitution that declared the freedom of all men, judicial decree, white’s unease with their ideological hypocrisy, and a mixed economy that condoned but did not require slavery all pushed the decline of human bondage." ~Chernoh Sesay, Jr., “The American Revolution, Race, and the Failed Beginning of a Nation,” Black Perspectives, (2016).
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The end of slavery in Massachusetts was gradual and the process of "judicial emancipation" was slow, vague, and unjust. Hill, Samuel, Engraver. View of the court house in Salem Massachusetts / W. Gray, del.; engraved by S. Hill. Salem Massachusetts, 1790. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004670231/.
Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Title_Page_of_the_1780_Massachusetts_Constitution.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Articles_of_the_1780_Massachusetts_Constitution.jpg Hardesty, Jared Ross. Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of New England Slavery. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. 2019. Melish, Joanne Pope. Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and "Race" in New England, 1780–1860. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1998. Massachusetts Constitution and the Abolition of Slavery, https://www.mass.gov/guides/massachusetts-constitution-and-the-abolition-of-slavery. Learn More
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Last updated: February 24, 2023