Episode 15: The Heavens Fall

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jim Ambuske (00:00):
This episode of Worlds Turned Upside Down is
made possible with support froma 2024 grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities.The ship the Earl of Halifax,
rose and fell with the swells asit crossed the North Atlantic in
the waning weeks of September1771. It had sailed from New

(00:25):
York City on Monday the 16th,headed for Falmouth, England, a
journey that would eventuallytake 29 days. Packet ships like
the Halifax regularly ferriedmail, passengers and cargo to
distant ports in Great Britain'svast Atlantic Empire. They were

(00:45):
the ships that made the oceansmall. Scipiowas aboard the
Halifax for this Septembercrossing. He probably slept on
the floor of his cabin, one heshared with Henry Laurens of
Charleston, South Carolina, hisowner, who rested on the bed.The

(01:06):
oldest and the youngest ofLaurens' three sons shared the
cabin as well. Like many SouthCarolinian plantation masters,
the widowed Laurens believedthat the colonies were ill
suited for his son's education.Only schools in the mother
country, in London or Edinburghwould do. It was inEngland,

(01:27):
after all, where Laurens learnedthe merchant trade lessons that
would help him build a Carolinaempire of his own in rice,
indigo, deerskins and slaves.Laurens agreed to take Scipio
home as British Americans likehim often called England. It
took some convincing on Scipio'spart a year earlier, Laurens had

(01:50):
sent his enslaved footmen toGeorgia on an errand to deliver
a letter and wait for an answer.It should have taken two days.
Scipio had other ideas. Hereturned to Charleston a week
later, and without the reply.Still, Laurens would need a
servant while in London, and hehad little desire to pay the

(02:11):
wages for an English one,besides with Scipio at his side,
dressed in fine, fashionablelivery, clothing that projected
his wealth and the power hepossessed over his enslaved man,
Laurens could hold his own amongthe West Indian planters
residing in London, men andwomen with whom he shared more
in common than he did a BritishAmerican from Boston or even

(02:34):
Virginia. Somewhere on thoseswells in the middle of the
Atlantic, Scipio came to a finaldecision his name was not really
his own, in a perverse displayof their mastery, enslavers had
long given enslaved people namesfrom the greatest figures of the

(02:55):
ancient world, names likePompey, Caesar, Cato or
Hercules. Scipio was one suchname, tying the man on board the
Halifax to Scipio Africanus, theRoman general who had beaten
Hannibal and defeated Carthagein the Second Punic War. The
name Scipio would not do well inLondon. Though he had never been

(03:18):
to the capital of BritishAmerica, Scipio knew enough
about the cosmopolitan city atthe Empire's heart to know that
a slave's name would closecertain doors for him, that a
new one would open others. Heinformed Laurens that he was
Scipio no longer. He would nowgo by the name Robert. It wasn't

(03:40):
really a request, but thecourtesy of information, the
Laurens family landed atFalmouth on the southwest coast
of England on October 9, the dayafter Henry wrote of his sons
and of Robert in a letter to hisbrother:

Unknown (03:56):
"Jacky and Jemmy are both well. Robert, sometimes
Scipio is well too, and hithertohas behaved very well and
promises fair to continue goodand dutiful. If he keeps that
promise, I shall hold myselfmuch obliged to him, for no
stranger could serve me soacceptably as he can."

Soon, they set out for London, passing first
through Bristol, riding incarriages and over roads that
jostled their bodies as well asHenry's nerves. When they
arrived at the outskirts of theCapitol on October 21, it marked
the beginning of a three yearstay for the Charleston merchant
and planter. But before enteringthe city, they spent several

(04:38):
weeks in Chelsea. Neither Jemmynor Robert had immunity from
smallpox. First, they would haveto be inoculated. Having
survived the ordeal with mildsymptoms, the Lawrence family
entered London in late November.They settled into their lodgings
on Fludyer Street, just aroundthe corner from Downing Street

(04:58):
where Frederick, Lord North. ThePrime Minister resided and not
far from Buckingham House, whereKing George the Third and Queen
Charlotte could often be found.As they made the home on Fludyer
Street their own, Henry Laurenswas confident in his property
rights in the man now calledRobert, though not always
assured of his ability tocontrol him. Indeed, as those

(05:22):
early days stretched into weeksand then into the early months
of the new year, Robert began tosee the world differently.
London was a place ofpossibility, with a growing
black population of its own,including many black British
Americans like him. And therewas something more, a subtle

(05:43):
shift in the common winds thatcarried enslaved Africans to the
New World and enslaved peoplelike Robert to Britain. For just
as Robert Laurens arrived inEngland, a West African-born
enslaved Virginian named JamesSomerset was on a journey of his
own. As Robert walked the Londonstreets, Somerset was just

(06:06):
nearby, languishing in the shipAnne and Mary bound for Jamaica.
His owner, Boston customscollector, Charles Steuart, had
brought Somerset to London in1769. He fled Steuart two years
later, the very October thatRobert first made landfall in
England. Now having recapturedSomerset and clapped him in

(06:27):
irons aboard the Anne and MaryStuart wanting to rid himself of
the enslaved man and sell him towork in the sugar fields of
Britain's wealthiest colony. ButSomerset had influential friends
and benefactors, and theybelieved that his plight was
more than just about theinjustices done to any one man.
He was a moment a means toattack the very foundations of

(06:51):
slavery itself. As Robertescorted the Laurens boys to
school, ran errands for hismaster, and beganimagining a new
life for himself in London,Somerset and his allies set in
motion events that could not beundone. They petitioned
England's most important court,led by its most powerful judge,

(07:13):
to answer a fundamental questionthat would shape the fortunes of
them all. Did slavery exist inthe laws of England, and they
prayed that justice would bedone, though the heavens may
fall.
I'm Jim Ambuske, and this isWorlds Turned Upside Down, a

(07:35):
podcast about the history of theAmerican Revolution. Episode 15,
The Heavens Fall. in December,1771, two months after Robert
Lawrence first stepped foot onEnglish soil, James Somerset's
supporters challenged hisdetainment on board the Ann and
Mary, Elizabeth Cade, ThomasWalkin, and John Marlow, who had

(07:58):
become Somerset's godparentsupon his conversion to
Christianity, pleaded to theCourt of King's Bench for a writ
of habeas corpus to secureSomerset's release. The "Great
Writ," as it was often known,has its origins deep in the
medieval past, with its modernform taking shape in the 17th
century. By the 1770s it hadbecome, in the view of Sir

(08:22):
William Blackstone, ""the greatand efficacious writ for the
protection it afforded theking's subjects "in all manner
of illegal confinement." Thewrit commanded those who
received it "to show the body"to bring their prisoners before
the court and justify theirdetainment. The Court granted
Somerset's plea in earlyDecember, Captain John Knowles

(08:45):
of the Ann and Mary brought himbefore the court on December 9,
the Lord Chief Justice, WilliamMurray, Earl of Mansfield, set a
hearing for the new year todecide whether Somerset had been
illegally detained and whetherCharles Steuart had the power to
remove his enslaved man fromEngland. Until then, Lord
Mansfield released Somerset onhis own accord. Enslaved people

(09:08):
had sometimes turned to thecourts in Great Britain and the
colonies to challenge theirimprisonment or sue enslavers
for harm. But by the 1760s, aswhite Britons on both sides of
the Atlantic celebrated theirplace in an Empire of Liberty,
enslaved people and their alliesbegan contesting the legality of
slavery itself. Yet a finaljudgment remained elusive.

(09:33):
British Americans regularlybrought enslaved people like
Robert Laurens or James Somersetfrom the colonies where laws
supporting people as a form ofproperty were clear to England
and Scotland, where they werenot. Somerset's supporters,
including the abolitionistGranville Sharp, hoped that his
case would resolve a questionfew wanted to ask, and many

(09:55):
white Britons on both sides ofthe Atlantic had long struggled
to avoid.

Trevor Burnard (10:02):
it's a really important moment in this
history. I'm Christopher Brown.I'm a professor of history at
Columbia University. The basicconflict is this, although
historians disagree about how tointerpret it, the English as
they settled, the Americascreated an institution of human

(10:23):
bondage that did not exist inEngland at the time. They
devised systems of slavery thathad precedence in the Spanish
and Portuguese colonies, butthey did not exist in recent
English history, and there'scertainly no institutional
transfer. So they were devisinga slave system largely out of

(10:43):
whole cloth. Now there are somescholars who have pointed out
that they were drawing oncertain resources that were in
the English legal andconstitutional tradition, and I
think there's some merit tothat. But the fact of the matter
was, there was no slave law inEngland, and so what that meant
was that slave holders in thecolonies, in Virginia and South

(11:04):
Carolina, Barbados, whereverthey came from, Boston, when
they arrived in England, thestatus of the people that they
brought with them who were theirslaves was very, very, very
uncertain, because on one hand,they had clear property rights.
On the other hand, thoseproperty rights were not
recognized in English law. Andeven more, the extent to which

(11:26):
England could be expected toenforce the rights of
slaveholders when they were inEngland was very much in
question.

For white British Americans in the colonies, as
well as Britons at home, whowere heavily invested in slavery
and the slave trade, theuncertainty of slavery's
legality in English law raisedtroubling questions beyond
England's borders for an empirewhose economic and social life
was deeply intertwined with it.But equally important for

(11:54):
enslaved and free black Britonson both sides of the Atlantic,
that uncertainty createdpathways to contest their
enslavement and advocate fortheir rights and liberties. So
why did legal challenges toslavery emerge in England in the
years after the Seven Years War?And how did anti slavery debates

(12:15):
throughout the British Atlanticworld call into question the
property in human beings? Tobegin answering these questions,
we'll remain first in thecapital to explore how slavery
shaped Robert Laurens's Londonworld. We'll then head into
theCourt of King's bench towitness James Somerset and his
friends argue for his freedom inEngland, before sailing back to

(12:37):
British America to consider theconsequences of Lord Mansfield's
ruling in the case for BlackBritish Americans and for the
Empire,.When Robert Lawrencesettled in London in November
1771 it was a city that manyBritish Americans had never seen
yet, one that had a powerfulinfluence over all of their

(12:58):
lives.

Julie Flavell (13:00):
I like to suggest that London was actually the
greatest city America ever had,because in it were united the
centers of commerce, governmentand culture. Julie Flavell,
independent scholar.London wasthe seat of government with the
court and Parliament and thefinancial capital with the Bank
of England and the city.

It was also enormous. Although we don't have
Robert's own first impressions,we can imagine his wonder at the
city's size and its grandeur.

During the 18th century, London was coming into
its own as one of the world'sgreat cities, which, of course,
how it's known today, and itexperienced continuous growth
throughout the century, butespecially after Britain emerged
victorious from the Seven YearsWar in 1763 which in America is
the French and Indian War. AndBritain came out of this war

(13:51):
with huge new possessions inIndia, the Caribbean, and of
course, North America. TheBritish had taken Canada from
the French. London received ahuge boost from all this a post
war boom. It was the Empire'sbiggest seaport, and of course,
it was the financial capital,and in fact, it was the largest
city in the western world atthis time, 20 times the size of

(14:15):
colonial cities like New York,Philadelphia and Boston. Just to
give an idea of what was big inthose days. In 1760, London had
about three quarters of amillion people. It was going to
pass a million at the turn ofthe century. And after 1763
there was rapid expansion ofhousing in London, because the
English middle classes suddenlydecided they could afford to

(14:36):
move into London for the season.And the London season was when
Parliament was in sessionbetween October and April every
year, and at that time, avibrant nightlife emerged in
London, plays, concerts, ballsand pleasure gardens,
masquerades.

The vibrancy of the city's cultural life and its
imperial reach were madepossible in part because London
also:

Had the critical mass of talent needed to achieve
excellence in the arts. Sobooks, famous authors like Dr
Johnson, Henry Fielding thesewere all well known in the
colonies. If you came to Londonin the 18th century, you could
often see these people. If youcould find out what their
favorite aunts were, theirfavorite coffee houses, you
could see Dr Johnson walkingdown Fleet Street. Books were

(15:23):
consumed avidly in the colonies,and they almost always came from
London newspapers. The colonistshad their own newspapers, but
London articles were widelyreprinted in the colonial press.
You could hear superiorperformances of music. Everyone
wanted to go to see the Londonstage and to see Garrick
perform, if you wanted to be anartist and reach the highest

(15:45):
level of achievement in the 18thcentury, you simply had to come
to London. Was at this time thatBenjamin West came to London,
the Pennsylvania artist. Hehelped found the Royal Academy
of Arts in 68 and in 1771 hereally made his name painting
the death of Wolf, which was hisdepiction of Woolf dying on the

(16:06):
heights of Abraham at the momentof British victory in 1759, and
of course, it's significant thatthat was an American subject,
and this picture was immenselypopular. He made a fortune off
selling the prints as well, andit made him history painter to
the king in the next year. Andof course, London also set the
scene for fashion luxuries. Andit might be thought that these

(16:28):
things in America were mostlybought by the well to do. But in
fact, people were surprised tosee London fashions, London
luxuries, being purchased evenon the frontier.

British Americans traveled to London as part of
ships crews, as tourists and byforce, as enslaved people.

Trade increased during the period. Merchant
vessels with American crews werecoming in ever bigger numbers.
And of course, the Americancrews emptied out into the
London streets. It's hard tofind out about them, though, but
the American tourists increasedafter 1763 and I think that's
partly because travel was moresecure and reliable, but it's
also that following the SevenYears War, Americans were very

(17:08):
proud to be British. They'dhelped with the victory, and
more than ever, they wanted totravel to London just to
experience a life if they hadthe money for education to
conduct business. And thelargest number of these
Americans were wealthy planterswho often came with family
members, wives, children, andthey brought their enslaved
servants as well. The wealthyAmericans usually took up places

(17:33):
to live, settled in the wealthyWest End of London, and there
were probably somewhere between800 and 1000 of these American
types in London in any one year.

The wealthy and the lower sort who ventured to
London in the 18th century saw,tasted and smelled unmistakable
evidence of slavery's importanceto the city and the Empire,
including:

American commodities. The biggest
commodities were, of course,sugar and tobacco. Sugar coming
from the west, indies tobaccofrom the Chesapeake. They were
the most noticeable. And sincethe 17th century, tobacco shops
had become a familiar sight inthe streets of London, and they
sported American icons andemblems outside of them, wooden
Native American sometimespaintings of enslaved black

(18:19):
field workers. And in thosedays, you could spot a tobacco
shop because smoke billowed outof the open doors, if you can
imagine anything that horrible.And pubs and coffee houses also
became totally smoke filledsugar and its byproduct, rum
were consumed everywhere. Andsugar had a significant
knockdown effect on threebeverages, tea, coffee and

(18:42):
chocolate, which of course, wasalso American. Milk chocolate
was said to be invented in the17th Century by mixing in milk
and sugar. Coffee houses were avery common sight in London by
the 18th century, and sugar wasassociated with this.

Coffee houses were central to London life in the
18th century,

The coffee houses were places where people went to
read newspapers, eat, drink,meet people. They had business
meetings who could get a privateroom and a coffee house.

Merchants from South Carolina, ship captains
from Boston, Jamaican plantationmasters and others met in
certain London coffee houses tonegotiate contracts, discuss
politics, hear the latest news,renew ties with fellow British
Americans abroad, and forge newconnections with their fellow
British subjects across theEmpire.

There were these colonial coffee houses, like a
New England Coffee House, aPennsylvania coffee house. There
were coffee houses for thevarious provinces of England
too, and there were also coffeehouses that people of certain
trades went to when they cameinto London, because that's how
you made your connections. Ifyou were a tailor who was
working in clothes and fashion,you might make your way to a

(19:50):
certain coffee house.

Robert Laurens visited the coffee houses, heard
that chatter and smelled thesmoke as he accompanied his
master Henry around the city andran errands on his behalf. And
as he did so, Robert could seehimself in London. By the early
1770s people of African descenthad maintained a presence in
Great Britain for over 200years. This was especially true

(20:17):
in London.

It's estimated that there were about 15,000
people of African descent livingin London at that time that made
London the place with thelargest urban black population
in the English speaking world.There was probably an imbalance
in the sex ratio in favor ofmales, probably because quite a
number of people of Africandescent were there as an
offpouring of the slave trade inLondon, or because they came as

(20:42):
American or West Indian servant.But there were also London born
Blacks by this time, and therewas a native London black
population.

Free and enslaved men and women of African descent
frequented London coffee houses,drove carriages through its
streets, married and baptizedtheir children, worshiped in its
churches, labored as domesticservants in London homes and
unloaded cargo down on itsdocks.

Colonial American enslaved servants like Robert
would have a lot in common withthe servant class in London.
They were trained as servants,and so for Robert, it was a
great new environment. He wasHenry Lawrence's footman. He'd
go from Henry Laurens's house inFludyer Street to deliver
messages that would take severalhours. Fludyer Street was right
up near Whitehall. So you canimagine walking from Whitehall

(21:27):
into the city with a message. Imean, you could stop and chat to
people, look at street shows orwhatever. London was filled with
street shows. You'd have accessto money all sorts of variety
entertainment. There werededicated servants pubs that
Robert and his fellow servants,the white servants in Fludyer
Street, would have known andgone to. It was common to tip
servants in London. So Robertwould have gotten tips. Henry

(21:51):
hated having him get money,because every time Robert got
money, he became difficult tocontrol. I don't think Robert
drank or gambled. I don't thinkhe had any vices. I just think
that, like most London servants,once he got some money in his
pocket, he found better thingsto do than to hurry up and do
what his master had told him todo.

War also brought black soldiers and sailors to
London. Here's ChristopherBrown.

One of the things that happens is, after
the Seven Years' War, there is afair number of lack men who end
up as sailors, who end up in theRoyal Navy in one form or
another, either as slaves orfree people serving on British
forces during that conflict andafter the war, as sailors and
soldiers either discharged, andmany of them are discharged in
London. And so all of a sudden,there are 1000s of black men in

(22:36):
London who are building anemerging black community.

Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was one of them. Gronniosaw
served in the 28th Regiment ofFoot and fought in the Caribbean
campaigns near the end of theSeven Years' War. He did so as a
free man, though for much of hisearly life he had been enslaved
in the early 1720s a 15 year oldGronniosaw had been taken

(23:00):
captive in Bornu, in modernNigeria, enslaved first in
Barbados and then New York.Gronniosaw's owner freed him in
his will. His service in themilitary was a means of
protecting that freedom. Helater settled for a time in
London, married an Englishweaver named Betty, and with
her, had several children withpatronage support from Selina

(23:24):
Hastings, Countess ofHuntingdon, an evangelical
aristocrat swept up by the GreatAwakening. Gronniosaw published
his memoirs in 1772. LikeGronniosaw Olaudah Equiano
served in the Seven Years War,though not as a soldier, but as
a sailor. Unlike Gronniosaw ,Equiano served as an enslaved

(23:46):
man. His tale is a remarkableOdyssey. Equiano was born in an
Igbo village, also in modernNigeria, in the mid
1740s.According to the memoir hepublished years later, he was
kidnapped by enslavers in themid 1750s and shipped first to
the sugar island of Barbados. Hesurvived the horrors of the

(24:08):
Middle Passage, but when no onepurchased him, he was carried to
Virginia, where he became theproperty of a planter. Soon, a
Royal Naval officer namedMichael Henry Pascal bought him
and took Equiano to sea with himduring the war. That took him to
London in 1759, where he wasbaptized in St. Margaret's
Church in Westminster Abbey.Equiano learned to read, write

(24:31):
and navigate during the war, butservice did not earn him his
freedom. He was sold back to theWest Indies in 1763 where a
Philadelphia Quaker named RobertKing purchased him. Equiano
labored for King's merchantbusiness, a trade that sent
Georgian and South Carolinianproduce to the West Indies to
feed enslaved people working thedeadly sugar fields. King

(24:55):
permitted Equiano to trade onthe side, and by 1766 he was
able. Able to buy his ownfreedom. A year later, he sailed
for London for years afterEquiano labored as a free
Mariner, one of the 1000s ofblack mariners who served aboard
ships sailing from Europe toNorth and South America. For

(25:16):
many white Londoners, theinfusion of black soldiers and
sailors after the war, in thepresence of free and enslaved
people, more generally, was acause for concern.

There's real anxiety among those who care
about the racial makeup ofLondon, that there are too many
black people here, and thatslaveholders, if they keep
bringing him, there's going tobe even more people here.

Robert Laurens' ability to enjoy London life was
tempered by how others perceivedhim

In terms of Robert's experience, the
attitude of the lower orders ofLondon, who were the people
Robert would have the most to dowith towards race is a bit murky
for that period, there certainlywere what we'd call racist
attitudes. But the scientificracism of the 19th century,
where people articulatedpseudoscientific ideas about

(26:10):
Nordic superiority and so forth,simply hadn't emerged. In the
18th century. There certainlywas racism, but 18th century
Britons, who encountered newpeoples and cultures in the
Imperial context were morepreoccupied with the issue of
levels of development.

By the 18th century, European thinkers had
developed a view of humanhistory that imagined peoples as
passing through stages ofdevelopment, from savagery on
the one end to civility on theother. Those philosophies became
entangled with emerging ideasabout race, providing some of
the intellectual justificationsfor the continued enslavement of

(26:47):
African peoples and the socialand economic power that slavery
and the transatlantic slavetrade made possible. But by the
1770s a small but growing antislavery movement had emerged on
both sides of the Atlantic,although not for the reasons we
might think.

It's important to understand that anti-slavery
and anti-slavery movements werenot movements for racial
equality. Their objectives werenot 20th century objectives.
They were 18th centuryobjectives. They took racial
difference and they took thesuperiority of European peoples

(27:28):
over African peoples largely forgranted. They were concerned
about the institution of slaveryrather than the
institutionalization of racialdifferences. It's a really
important distinction. Theproblems that slavery presented,
especially in the BritishAtlantic world, tended to fall
along a number of differentlines. One was about safety and

(27:51):
security. There was the feelingin many colonies that a
disproportion of Africanlaborers compared to white
laborers, endangered the socialenvironment made the
possibilities of slave revoltsmuch higher discourage the
immigration of white workers whomight want to come to the
colonies

For Herman husband, an evangelical Quaker and one of
the leaders of North Carolina'sRegulator Rebellion in the late
1760s, slavery had a corruptinginfluence on white settlers.
Reflecting on what he witnessedin Barbados during a trade
voyage there, a decade earlier,husband feared the spread of
slavery in North Carolina:

Chernoh Sesay Jr. (28:31):
“The white people cannot nither increase
nor thrive where the treasure ofa country is carried from them
to purchase those blacks.”

There's also a series of religious objections,
but not on the grounds thatslave holding is against
thefaith. The vast majority ofreligious ministers, Protestant
ministers in the 13 Colonies,whether they be representatives
of the Church of England,whether they're later Baptists
or Presbyterians and laterMethodists, whether they're

(28:59):
Congregationalists, Puritans,almost all of them, in one way
or another, take the system ofslavery for granted. But more
from the standpoint that slaveholders in the British colonies
tended to regard the men andwomen they held as slaves as not
deserving of conversion to thefaith. They did not want to see
them become Christians. And so alot of British missionaries

(29:23):
objected to slavery because theslaveholders it created blocked
the expansion of Christianity.And so their objections were as
much about the ways that itinterfered with the spread of
the gospel. The Quakers areunusual in that there did
develop a dissenting traditionwithin the religious community
of men and women who reallybelieved that holding slaves,

(29:48):
purchasing slaves, owningslaves, selling slaves violated
the tenets of their religiouswitness. That was a minority
point of view, the vast majorityof the Quaker elite blah. Slaves
owned slaves, trade in slaves.Quakers were not abolitionists
from the moment they arrived inthe Americas. But unlike the

(30:08):
other Protestant denominations,there was real debate within the
Society of Friends.

The transatlantic slave trade came under criticism
as well.

The slave trade becomes the first target in the
North American movement, in thebeginnings of American anti
slavery. It's not the principalsubject on the British side at
all. In fact, the main way thatthe issue of slavery in the
Atlantic world arises in Britainis around the questionable

(30:42):
virtue morals of Americansettlers. It takes a while for
British activists to actuallyfocus on the British slave trade
itself. The opposition to theslave trade is more of a North
American complaint than it is aBritish complaint on the
American side, the objections tothe slave trade serve a variety

(31:04):
of political and polemicalpurposes, but there are also
real worries at different pointsin the 18th century about a
unregulated, unrestrictedarrival of Africans directly
from West Africa, where, on theone hand, the labor is welcome,
but on the other hand, there isthe feeling among many that the

(31:26):
social and cultural order it wasdangerous to bring in so many
Africans. And even in the 1750s1760s there are discussions
about the preference for a NorthAmerican society that will be
for whites, where the blackpopulation will be very small.

(31:48):
And you even see this inBenjamin Franklin back in the
1750s where he makes an argumentagainst the import of enslaved
Africans on the grounds that wedon't want to corrupt the racial
order that we might build here.There are lots of different
reasons why the slave trade getsopposed in different times, but
immigration control is one ofthem.

In Virginia, wealthy planters attacked the
slave trade to counterParliament's attempts to impose
its authority on the colonies.In 1767 and 1769, the colony's
House of Burgesses passed lawsthat doubled the customs duties
on imported enslaved people.King George the Third vetoed
both. When Virginians joined awider colonial resistance

(32:33):
movement in response toparliament's passage of the
Townshend acts, the new dutieson paper, paint, lead, glass and
tea, leading Virginians includedslaves among the many goods they
would not purchase untilParliament backed down. But
wealthy Virginia planters in theTidewater had additional
incentives for taking action. Bythe early 1770s colonies like

(32:56):
Virginia and Maryland had lessneed for the transatlantic slave
trade than they once did. Whilethe brutality that sugar slavery
wrought on black bodies inJamaica and Antigua required
constant infusions of enslavedpeople from West Africa, the
relatively healthierenvironments in the Chesapeake
enabled greater naturalreproduction of black

(33:16):
populations. For Tidewaterplanters, then, cutting off the
transatlantic slave trade servedtwo different ends. It would
ensure higher property valuesand their existing enslaved
people, and it would permit themto exercise greater social and
economic control over smallfarmers in the Virginia
Piedmont. By this point, smallplanters were purchasing more

(33:39):
enslaved people from West Africathan the Tidewater elite and
small planters frequentlyviolated the non importation
movement by purchasingadditional slaves forcibly
carried from Africa or the WestIndies by eliminating the
transatlantic trade. Wealthyplanters could remind them all
of who ruled at home when theHouse of Burgesses petitioned

(34:00):
George the Third in April 1772they argued that the slave trade
threatened the colony's securityand its future prosperity.

Anne Fertig (34:09):
“The Importation of Slaves into the Colonies from
the Coast of Africa hath longbeen considered as a Trade of
great Inhumanity, and, under itspresent Encouragement, we have
too much reason to fear willendanger the very Existence of
your Majesty’s AmericanDominions.We are sensible that

(34:30):
some of your Majesty’s Subjectsin Great Britain may reap
Emoluments from this Sort ofTraffick, but when we consider
that it greatly retards theSettlement of the Colonies with
more useful Inhabitants, and mayin Time, have the most
destructive Influence, wepresume to hope that the
Interest of a few will bedisregarded when placed in

(34:51):
Competition with the Securityand Happiness of such Numbers of
your Majesty’s dutiful and loyalSubjects.”

All of these things, notice, are not
principally about the welfare ofAfricans. They are judgments
about the institutional, social,cultural order of the colonies.
Which is not to say thatindividuals and groups are not
occasionally concerned too withthe pain that enslaved men and
women suffer. But that's notwhat principally motivates

(35:21):
people when they are expressinganti slavery views.

The king ignored the petition and vetoed this
latest attempt to restrict theslave trade. The Virginians use
of the word "inhumanity" intheir petition to the king
suggests a more fundamental antislavery argument that slavery
and the slave trade wereviolations of the laws of
nature. In 1764, Boston lawyerJames Otis, Jr. argued as much

(35:50):
in his pamphlet, The Rights ofthe British Colonies Asserted
and Proved. Otis wrote tochallenge Parliament's claim of
right to impose the Sugar Act of1764 and the impending Stamp Act
of 1765, on the colonies. And ashe did so, he argued against
slavery.

Unknown (36:07):
“The colonists are by the law of nature freeborn, as
indeed all men are, white andblack…..Does it follow that ‘tis
right to enslaved a man becausehe is black?....Nothing better
can be said in favor of a tradethat is the most shocking
violation of the law of nature,has a direct tendency to
diminish the idea of theinestimable value of liberty,

(36:31):
and makes every dealer in it atyrant.”

In other words, in the state of nature, all people
were created equal, but as theygathered together in societies,
created governments and madelaws the few who acquired power
could oppress even enslave themany. Otis knew this intimately.
His father owned slaves. Otisattacked slavery to illuminate

(36:56):
liberty's absence or the threatof its loss when proper
safeguards were not in place toprevent a body like Parliament
from passing new laws thatclaimed greater power and
authority over the colonies thanmost British Americans believed
it had. But for Granville Sharp,the laws of man were equally
troubling. In the colonies, somestatutes governing the

(37:18):
enslavement of human beings wereas plain as day. Some like
certain laws in Virginia weremore than a century old, and in
his mind, the failure ofParliament and English judges to
clarify the nation's own lawsmade slavery in England a
serious imperial problem.

Granville Sharp, I think, needs to be regarded as
the first mover in the Britishanti-slavery movement. He is
responsible for bringing theSomerset case to the courts. He
works throughout the 1760s toraise the question of the
legality of slave holding inEngland. He's basically alone in

(37:56):
doing that in the 1770s he's atonce criticizing American
slaveholders and the Britishgovernment for its support of
the slave trade, he's basicallythe only person in the Anglo
American world who's saying the18th century equivalent of pox
on both of your houses.

Sharp's awareness of a London he rarely noticed
before began in 1765, when heencountered a bruised, battered
and nearly blind enslaved mannamed Jonathan Strong, teetering
on the brink of death. He foundStrong on Mincing Lane outside
the home of his brother, DrWilliam Sharp. Strong was around

(38:37):
17 years old. His master, aBarbadian lawyer and slave
trader named David Lisle hadbeaten him. The sSarp brothers
managed to get strong to thehospital. When he recovered,
they helped him gain employmentin an apothecary. But two years
later, Lisle found him. Keen torecover his investment in his

(38:58):
enslaved man he had strongdetained with the intention of
selling him to his ship boundfor Barbados. Strong managed to
get word to Granville Sharpabout his predicament, who
persuaded the Lord Mayor ofLondon and the city's coroner to
intervene and secure Strong'srelease. David Leslie and others
claimed they had clear propertyrights in Jonathan strong,

(39:21):
whether in England or Barbados,and that they were free to
remove strong from England asthey pleased. Granville Sharp's
reading of English law suggestedotherwise,as he argued in a 1769
treatise,

Granville Sharp (39:35):
“The practice of importing Slaves into this
kingdom, and retaining them assuch, is an innovation entirely
foreign to the spirit andintention of the laws now in
force.”

He could find no act of parliament, no case in
equity, no precedent in thecommon law of England to sustain
legal slavery in the country,the assertion of property rights
in other. Others was, in hisview,

Granville Sharp (40:01):
“An innovation of such an unwarrantable and
dangerous nature, that besidesthe gross infringement of the
common and natural rights ofmankind, it is plainly contrary
to the laws and constitution ofthis kingdom.”

Sharp began searching for a case that he
could bring before Englishcourts to test his arguments, a
case that would result in aprecedent that finally resolved
the question of slavery'slegality in England. Judges like
Lord Chief Justice Mansfieldwere not eager to address that
question directly.In two earliercases involving enslaved people,

(40:38):
Mansfield and the juries decidedthe cases while avoiding the
question. But with JamesSomerset's confinement aboard
the Anne and Mary in December1771 Sharp believed he had
finally found a contest thateven Mansfield could not
ignore.Like Ukawsaw Gronniosaw,Olaudah Equiano, and Jonathan

(41:01):
Strong, James Somerset had livedan Atlantic life, though one not
always of his choosing. Somersetwas born in West Africa sometime
around 1741, he was eight yearsold when he was sold into
slavery. We don't know the namehis family gave him. That name
was lost in the waters of theMiddle Passage. He was shipped

(41:23):
to Virginia, where a Scottishmerchant named Charles Steuart
purchased him in Norfolk onAugust the first 1749. Somerset
became Steuart's personalservant. The surviving evidence
suggests that during his time inBritish America, he was known
only as Somerset and not James.During his life in Virginia,

(41:44):
Somerset ran errands for Stewartand forged relationships with
Virginians, both black andwhite. He witnessed at least one
other of Stewart's enslavedpeople run away, and he was
probably aware of the case of anenslaved man named Jack who sued
his master for freedom in aVirginia court, although we
don't know how that case endedin 1764, the Crown named Steuart

(42:07):
to the position of ReceiverGeneral of Customs in Boston. He
took Somerset with him toMassachusetts Bay. Slavery was
ever present in the New Englandcolony, though it was not as
essential to the economic andsocial fabric as it was in
Virginia.

Unknown (42:22):
Historians estimate that by mid century, Boston's
black population numbered around15,141 people, and this was
maybe 10 to 15% of the city'spopulation, which numbered just
over 15,000 My name is ChernohSesay Jr, I am an associate

(42:43):
professor in the Department ofReligious Studies at DePaul
University and an historian ofearly America. However, by the
late 1760s Boston's blackpopulation had declined probably
to about half, and so twodistinct waves of earlier
importation had increased thecity's enslaved population from

(43:05):
roughly 400 people at the startof the century to its mid
century high of around 1500 andthen to deal with too many
enslaved arrivals, from 1750 to1760 Bostonians sold
Approximately half of theirblack population away from the
city to other American ports orto the Caribbean.

By the early 1760s enslaved and free people were
suing in courts for their rightsand liberties in greater
numbers, aided by sympatheticwhite colonists. Black
Bostonians challenged slaveryand injustice using the law.

Unknown (43:41):
There's a great deal of ambiguity in Massachusetts law,
and, more broadly, New Englandlaw, about the status of
enslaved people. Again, despitethe fact that this was a society
with slaves, this was a societythat had completely legitimized
the institution of slavery,Massachusetts does grant certain

(44:04):
freedoms to its enslavedpopulation, while at the same
time, also, in variousinstances, invoking the color
line to acknowledge that slaverycould be passed on through lines
of racial descent.

Somerset would have read in the newspapers and
overheard in local taverns thestories of enslaved people like
Jenny Slew.

Unknown (44:29):
Jenny Slew's mother was white and her father was
enslaved. And so, beginning in1765 Jenny sues her master John
Whipple twice, and then twoyears later, Jenny actually wins
her case. She wins it on thesecond try. Her argument
effectively was that her statusshould follow that of her

(44:52):
mother, and given that hermother was white, Jenny should
not be enslaved that she wasquote "Restrained of her liberty
without any lawful right orauthority to do." So she is able
to have her freedom recognizedon the basis of this mixed
parentage.

Somerset, no doubt, knew about James in 1768,

Unknown (45:16):
James, who apparently was free at the time, attested
that Richard Lechmere had quote"with force and arms assaulted
the said James imprisoned andrestrained him of his liberty
and held him in servitude."Chief Justice Francis Dana of
the Massachusetts Superior Courtof Judicature actually rules in

(45:38):
favor of James and argues thatRichard had to pay some money in
reparations. Richard never windsup paying that money because
James doesn't appear to courtsto claim the money. But
nonetheless, this court case isimportant because on the one
hand, it makes reference to this1641, rule in Massachusetts law

(46:01):
that's defined an enslavedperson only as somebody who was
the, quote, lawful captive takenin just war. So James is able to
use this idea to argue that, infact, that didn't apply to him.
He was always a free person, andin fact, damages were done to
his body and his person byRichard Lechmere. And so, given

(46:25):
the paradox of personhood andproperty in this particular
case, the Massachusetts courtargues that James was, in fact,
never property, and by virtue ofbeing free, that he actually was
owed some recompense for havingexperienced this violence at the
hands of a white person,

Somerset carried that knowledge with him on the
next phase of his Atlanticjourney. In the summer of 1768,
Charles Steuart wrote to Londoncomplaining of exhaustion. He
requested permission to returnhome. Steuart had little
interest in dealing withBostonians who were rioting in
response to the Townshend dutieseither. He brought Somerset with

(47:06):
him to London in the fall of1769, confident of his property
rights in his enslaved man. LikeRobert Laurens, who came after
him, Somerset encountered aLondon of possibility. He had
some independent movement inEngland, with occasional
journeys that took him fromLondon to Bristol while running
errands for his master.LikeLaurens, Somerset found a

(47:29):
community of his own among thevarious London coffee houses and
other haunts. And he foundreligion. Some Christians
believed that by converting toChristianity, the enslaved
became free. In August, 1771Somerset was baptized in the
Church of St Andrew in Holborn.He adopted the first name

(47:50):
"James." Elizabeth Cade, ThomasWalkin, and John Marlow stood as
his godparents. Two months lateron October 1, 1771 Somerset ran
away from Steuart. 56 dayspassed before the men Steuart
hired to hunt down JamesSomerset finally found him.

(48:12):
Here's Julie Favell.

It wasn't necessarily as easy as you'd
think to run away and getfreedom in Britain. There were
no fugitive slave laws, ofcourse, the way there were in
the colonies, but nevertheless,if you didn't qualify for parish
relief, you could literally endup starving to death. I found
one story of a Maryland slavewho ran away, and he ended up
going back to another planterwho was a friend of his master,

(48:36):
and saying, Can you please speakfor me so I can go back, because
he was just starving to death.And of course, that happened to
native born English people whocame into London too and
couldn't get any relief. BlackAmericans were sometimes
kidnapped and forced back to theplantations or to America, but
sometimes because they wereescaped slaves, but sometimes
they were free blacks whosomebody just thought they could

(48:57):
make money off. So there wasthat risk.

Steuart had Somerset confined in Captain
John Knowles ship the Ann andMary a ship bound for Jamaica,
where he would be sold to workthe sugar fields. When they
learned of his imprisonment,Somerset's godparents sought
legal counsel. On December 3,they petitioned Lord Mansfield,
the Scottish-born Chief Justiceof England's court of King's

(49:20):
Bench for a writ of habeascorpus. That evening, as
Mansfield read through thepetition in his chambers, the
legality of slavery in Englandwas very much on his mind. The
Chief Justice had only justoverseen the criminal trial of a
man called Stapylton, who stoodaccused of attempting to
forcibly deport a black man heclaimed to own,named Thomas

(49:42):
Lewis. Granville Sharp was oneof the instigators of the case.
Though, the jury found Stapyltonguilty, they did so under
instruction from Mansfield, whodirected that they must find him
guilty, as Stapyltoncouldproduce no hard evidence that he
actually owned Lewis. Much toSharp's disappointment, this
allowed the court to avoid themore vexing question, and as

(50:06):
Mansfield noted at the trial'sconclusion:

"whether [slave owners] have this kind of
property or not in England hasnever been solemnly determined."

Ironically, determining the answer to that
solemn question had implicationsfor Mansfield's own family.
Since the mid 1760s, LordMansfield and his wife Elizabeth
have been raising their greatniece Dido Elizabeth Belle. Dido
was born enslaved the daughterof Mansfield's nephew, Royal

(50:38):
Naval Officer Sir John Lindsayand an enslaved West Indian
woman named Maria Bell. Sir Johnwas notorious for forcing
himself on enslaved women andgirls. Belle was only 15 years
old when she gave birth to Didoin 1761. When Sir John brought
Dido and Maria to LordMansfield's estate in 1765, Dido

(51:01):
began working on Mansfield'sEnglish farm. Later, she served
as his scribe. In a paintingcompleted years later, we see
evidence of Dido's nebulousexistence between slavery and
freedom.Dido appears with herwhite cousin Elizabeth, who
occupies the center space andfaces the viewer,Elizabeth is

(51:22):
wearing a pink dress adornedwith lace, a garland of flowers
crowns her head. But it is Didowho catches the viewer's eye.
aAyoung, mixed race woman of 17emerges from out behind her
cousin wearing a pale blue silkdress that catches the sunlight.
She has a turban on her headmade of the same silk, affixed

(51:44):
with a dark blue feather plume.Dido wears a single thick strand
of pearls around her neck andtear drop pearl earrings. She
gives the viewer a knowing lookwith a subtle smile, as if we
are all in on a good joke. It isthe portrait of two aristocratic
women, except one of them couldbe certain of her freedom beyond

(52:05):
England shores, and the othercould not. Whatever his personal
feelings may have been as agreat uncle, Mansfield, the Lord
Chief Justice, wished to put offthe question for as long as
possible. He believed in therule of law, but also the
sanctity of private propertyrights. He knew that even a

(52:26):
narrow ruling could haveconsequences hedid not intend,
and unlike previous cases, therewas clear evidence that Somerset
had been enslaved, facts hecould not avoid. On December 9,
Somerset appeared before LordMansfield, who ordered him
released from the Anne and Mary.The Chief Justice, scheduled a
hearing for the new year toconsider the legality of

(52:48):
Somerset's detainment. In themeantime, Somerset ventured
toGranville Sharp's home,knocked on his door and asked
for his help. Sharp sensed amoment, one that could turn the
tide. In the weeks thatfollowed, he helped assemble and
finance Somerset's legal teamnumbering five lawyers in all.

(53:09):
Charles Steuart, however, hadhis own attorneys. They were
backed by wealthy West Indianplanters who often brought
enslaved people from the sugarislands to England. Judges often
ruled on habeas petitions fairlyquickly. That the contest
between Somerset and Steuartlasted for six months, spanning
four separate hearings, tells usmuch about the importance all

(53:33):
parties gave to the case and thepreparation required to argue
either side of it. As the LondonEvening Post reported in early
February, the case had beenbrought:

Unknown (53:43):
“with a view of trying the point how far a negro, or
other black, is a slave inEngland, and consequently
entirely at his master’sdisposal.”

From January to June, 1772 Somerset and
Steuart's lawyers delivered oralarguments for hours in front of
a four judge panel led by LordMansfield and the spectators who
watched from the galleryinWestminster Hall. Londoners
followed along in newspapers andheard the latest in their coffee
houses. Somerset's case turnedon whether English law

(54:16):
countenanced slavery on Englishsoil, and whether colonial laws
followed masters and slaves toEngland, focusing on Somerset's
enslavement in Virginia, one ofhis lawyers argued:

Unknown (54:27):
“If the laws of Virginia reach here, and
continue him a slave, all thelaws of Virginia may as well
reach here and so we aregoverned by the laws of
Virginia, and not our own, atleast all laws affecting his
state as a slave.”

Putting a finer point on it, another argued that
it wasn't a question of whetherslavery was lawful in the
colonies, but whether it waslegal in England. And even more
to the point, "upon whatprinciple is it that a man can
become a dog for another man?"The arguments by Somerset's
lawyers left Steuart's attorneysscrambling to counter them. They

(55:02):
tried to invoke old feudal laws,pointed to others regulating
masters and servants, and notedthat slavery was practiced in
much of the world. But as theweeks passed, they failed to
persuade Lord Mansfield and hisfellow judges. The case went to
the judges for a decision on May14, 1772. Even then, Mansfield

(55:24):
tried to persuade Steuart thatif he simply freed Somerset,
there would be no need for aruling at all. Steuart and the
West Indian planters whosupported him were unmoved.
Londoners followed the caseclosely as they waited for a
decision. So did Robert Laurens,and for a brief moment, we hear
his own opinions on theimpending decision, or at least

(55:48):
what he wanted his master Henryto hear. In late May, Henry
wrote to a friend in Charleston.

Unknown (55:54):
“They say Supper is ready, otherwise I was going to
tell a long and comical Story,of a Trial between a Mr. Stuart
and his Black Man James Somersetat King’s Bench, for Liberty. My
Man Robert Scipio Laurens says,the Negroes that want to be free
here, are Fools.”

The court reached a unanimous decision more than a
month later. On June 22 ,1772,Lord Mansfield issued the
court's opinion with Somersetpresent and a number of other
Black Britons watching in thegallery. Mansfield spoke from
the bench, concluding that:

“The state of slavery is of such a nature that
it is incapable of beingintroduced on any reasons, moral
or political, but only bypositive law, which preserves
its force long after thereasons, occasions, and time
itself from whence it wascreated, is erased from memory.

(56:54):
It is so odious, that nothingcan be suffered to support it,
but positive law. Whateverinconveniences, therefore, may
follow from the decision, Icannot say this case is allowed
or approved by the law ofEngland; and therefore the black
must be discharged.”

When Mansfield finished speaking, Somerset and
the other Black observersapproached the bench, bowing
first to the Lord Chief Justiceand then to the lawyers in what
one person described as"Symptoms of the most
extravagant Joy." Somersetrushed to tell Granville Sharp
the result. Sharp had waited forthe judgment at home, fearing

(57:37):
that his presence in court wouldantagonize Mansfield. Despite
the "extravagant Joy" some feltin that moment, we must be clear
on what LordMansfield's decisionin the case of James Somerset
versus Charles Steuart did anddid not do. Christopher Brown
helps us to understand itsnuances.

The judgment of Lord Mansfield is that the
rights that slaveholders want toexercise in England are not
recognized under English law.The court does not say that
slavery does not exist, but thethings that are required to
enforce the right are notrecognized by law until
parliament passes a law

Mansfield found no precedent in common law to
support Charles Steuart'sarguments, nor any positive law
or act of parliament to sustainSteuart's claims, either.

So in other words, for example, you can't
ship someone out of the kingdom.You can't see somebody on the
streets, imprison them and thenexpel them from the country and
send them back to theirplantations involuntarily. It's
a violation of habeas corpusrights. From the standpoint of
the courts there in England,they're subject to English law.
Nobody subject to English lawcan be forced out of the kingdom

(58:48):
against the will of the crown.

Mansfield's ruling had no bearing on colonial laws
governing slavery, nor Englishlaws regulating the
transatlantic slave trade. Itdidn't lead to mass emancipation
in England, nor did it affectthe state of slavery in
Scotland, a nation with a legalsystem of its own. Moreover,
Mansfield intended his decisionto have a narrow effect to free

(59:13):
Somerset from his illegalconfinement only. Should
Somerset ever leave England,Steuart might have a strong
legal claim to him. The rulingproduced mixed reactions among
white British Americans in NorthAmerica, especially colonists
heavily invested in slavery andslaving.

I think it was an irritant. I think the outcome
of the case was widely dislikedin many parts of the 13
Colonies. I think it felt amongthose who were slightly more
suspicious, it felt ominous.

Even then, despite Parliament's recent attempts to
impose new taxes on the coloniesand exercise greater authority
on British America, few imaginedthat Parliament would intervene
in North American slavery. Notwhen slavery and the slave trade
powered so much of the Atlanticeconomy, nor did West Indian
planters believe they had muchto fear. Trevor Burnard, the

(01:00:10):
late Wilberforce Professor ofSlavery and Emancipation at the
University of Hull, explains.

Trevor Burnard (01:00:16):
They felt that Somerset decision was a very bad
decision, because it was a wayof threatening property rights
by slaveholders in slaves. Thetwo major arguments were that
Britain had always mandatedslavery. It had been part of
their laws forever. So they wereentitled to own property in
slaves, and they were as Englishas anybody else. They were as

(01:00:37):
English as people in Sussex orpeople in Yorkshire. They could
do those sort of things. But thesecond thing is that they've
worried that any sort of attackon slavery whatsoever, any sort
of way in which planter rightsover enslaved property would be
limited, was going to get themvery annoyed. So the leading
intellectuals in the WestIndies, Samuel Estwick in
Barbados, Samuel Martin inAntigua, and Edward Long in

(01:01:00):
Jamaica, all wrote lengthydenunciations for Somerset act.
But I think just as in NorthAmerica, the Somerset Act was
important, but it wastheoretical. It wasn't real. It
wasn't thatthere was any realattack on slavery.

Jim Ambuske (01:01:15):
But as Mansfield himself knew, judgments once
issued became open tointerpretation, and some doors
once opened could never again beclosed. Somerset understood this
more than most. 18 days afterthe decision, John Riddle, a
merchant, wrote to his friend,Charles Steuart, that he was
about to set out for Weymouth onEngland's southern coast.

(01:01:38):
However, Riddle's enslaved manDublin had gone missing.

Granville Sharp (01:01:42):
“I am disappointed by Mr. Dublin, who
has run away. He told theServants that he had recd. a
letter from his Unkle Sommersetacquainting him that Lord
Mansfield had given them theirfreedoms, & he was determined to
leave me so soon as I returnedfrom London which he did without
even speaking to me. I don’tfind that he is gone off with
anything of mine. Only carriedoff all his own Cloths which I

(01:02:04):
don’t know whether he had anyright so to do. I believe I
shall not give my Self anytrouble to look after the
ungrateful Villain."

Dublin's escape is the last moment we hear from
James Somerset. After the summerof 1772, he disappears from our
view. But word of his casespread to British America,
carried on packet ships blown bycommon winds that made the ocean
small. By mid-summer, newspapersin Massachusetts Bay,

(01:02:36):
Connecticut, Rhode Island,Virginia, Maryland, and
elsewhere were publishingupdates on the case and
Mansfield’s final judgement. Intaverns and coffeehouses, and
through word of mouth, enslavedand free people heard about
Somerset’s triumph. And likeSomerset’s advice to Dublin, at
least some enslaved people beganto believe that if they could

(01:02:57):
make it to England, they wouldbe free. In late September 1773,
John Austin Finnie placed anadvertisement in the Virginia
Gazette offering a reward forthe recapture of two enslaved
people who had fled from hishome in Surry County. The one, a
woman named Amy, was about 27years old. She may have been

(01:03:19):
born in the colonies, and had “amild soft Way of speaking.”
Finnie believed she was hidingin Portsmouth, a coastal port
town just to the east, andpassing as a free woman under
the assumed name Sukey Jones.The other, Bacchus, an
African-born man of 19 who spokebroken English, was reportedly
laboring nearby as a freeman.Finnie “had some Reason to

(01:03:43):
believe they will endeavour toget out of the Colony,
particularly to Britain, wherethey imagine they will be free.”
It was a belief, he feared, thatwas now “too prevalent” among
enslaved people. Nine monthslater a different Bacchus, about
30 years old, fled from GabrielJones in Augusta County. Bacchus
absconded with more than justhimself, he took two white

(01:04:06):
coats, a pair of blue plushbreeches, a cloth pompadour
waistcoat, white shirts, neatshoes with silver buckles, a
fine hat, “sundry other WearingApparel,” and a great deal of
cash. Jones suspected thatBacchus was concealing his
identity by using the name "JohnChristian." Perhaps that was

(01:04:27):
simply the new name that Bacchushad chosen for himself in hopes
of living a new free lifeabroad. Jones believed that John
Christian was heading forWilliamsburg, looking to board a
ship bound for Great Britain,"from the knowledge he has of
the late determination ofSomerset's case." Hundreds of
miles to the north, inMassachusetts Bay, some enslaved

(01:04:50):
men turned to a differentstrategy. Felix was one of them.
He was born in Africa in theearly 1740s. In 1750, at age
seven, he was kidnapped, soldinto slavery, and transported to
Boston, where he was given a newname. Young Felix became the
property of Mary and AbihaHolbrook, the headmaster of the

(01:05:12):
Boston South writing school.Here's Chernoh Sesay, Jr.

Chernoh Sesay Jr. (01:05:16):
Felix Holbrook was a man of African
descent whose name appears firstas the sole author of a petition
written to the Massachusettslegislature in 1773 this
particular petition is reallyimportant. It stands out. It's
the first anti slavery petitionof the Revolutionary era,
written in North America by aperson of African descent.

Although we have no way of knowing if James Somerset
and Felix knew each other, bothcame of age in a Boston world in
which enslaved people challengedtheir enslavement, and Felix
certainly knew about Somerset'strials in England.

There are several direct and indirect
connections between England'sSomerset case decided in 1772
and Felix's petitions. Felixcertainly knew about this
ruling, because it was muchdetailed in Boston newspapers.

In early 1773, Felix built on the foundations
of this recent history when hepetitioned Governor Thomas
Hutchinson and the ProvincialAssembly directly for freedom.
In a short petition datedJanuary 6, 1773, one drafted
with the help of white alliesand very carefully worded to

(01:06:30):
advocate for his rights withoutoffending the sensibilities of
provincial officials, many ofwhom owned enslaved people,
Felix stated quite plainly thatas enslaved people, legally:

Unknown (01:06:42):
“We have no Property! We have no Wives! No Children!
We have no City! No Country!”

Felix never mentions explicitly the Somerset
case, however, he expresslymentioned anti slavery efforts,
quote, :on both sides of thewater."

Felix asked for mercy and grace on behalf of his
fellow enslaved, lobbying thelegislature to pass new laws
that provided for their relief.Yet, knowing his audience all
too well, he asked that this bedone in a manner least
burdensome to enslavers. InApril 1773, Felix went one step

(01:07:22):
further, encouraged by publicsupport for his first petition.
Felix, along with Sambo Freeman,Peter Bestesand Chester Joie now
presumed the right to instructtheir town representative,
making a claim to citizenship inthe king's province. Referencing
the legislature's recent effortsto resist the Townsend duties

(01:07:42):
and the Stamp Act to prevent, assome white colonists argued,
Parliament's attempt to enslaveBritish America, the
petitioners:

Unknown (01:07:51):
"Cannot but wish and hope, Sir, that you will have
the same grand object, we meancivil and religious liberty, in
view in your next session. Thedivine spirit of freedom, seems
to fire every humane breast onthis continent, except such as
are bribed to assist inexecuting the execrable plan.”

As he had in January, Felix and his fellow
petitioners appealed to whitesensibilities. They pledged to
immigrate to Africa, should theybe freed, and asked for no more
than reasonable financialrelief. Two months later, in
June, they were more explicit.

Unknown (01:08:27):
The tone of the petitions becomes much more
impatient, and I also thinkthere's a kind of refinement of
the argument.

In a third petition, they argued that
though they were held in bondageby the laws of men, by the laws
of nature, they ought to befree.

Unknown (01:08:47):
that your petitioners apprehend they have, in common
with other men, a natural rightto be free and without
molestation, enjoy such propertyas they may acquire by their
industries or by any othermeans, not detrimental to their
fellow men.

The provincial Assembly deferred debate on the
June petition until thefollowing January. When the
House of Representatives finallyconsidered it in early 1774,
they incorporated the petitionsarguments into a new act banning
the importations of slaves intothe province. Although the bill
did not call for abolition, itwas an important moment, a clear

(01:09:24):
sign of enslaved voices shapingpolitical events. Similar
efforts to ban the trade hadfailed in the recent past.
Unfortunately, this new billsuffered the same fate. In early
March, 1774 Governor Hutchinsonprorogued the assembly.A new
imperial storm was on thehorizon, leaving the colony's

(01:09:45):
government in disarray andBritish America on the precipice
of disaster. For the moment,questions of slavery and freedom
in Massachusetts Bay would haveto wait in. 3000 miles from
Boston, Henry Laurens was makingarrangements to leave home and

(01:10:06):
return to South Carolina.Whether Robert Laurens would be
coming with him was anothermatter. In the fall of 1772,
months after the Somersetdecision, Henry and some
companions set off for Geneva ona tour of the continent. The
journey took the party throughFrance on their way back to
England, and Robert went withthem as Henry's servant. Despite

(01:10:30):
occasional difficultiescontrolling Robert's time and
behavior and the implications ofSomerset's case, Henry was
mostly confident in his masteryover his enslaved man and
certain of his property rightsin him. A year later, the winds
were blowing in a differentdirection. In April 1773, Henry

(01:10:52):
once again ventured to Geneva,this time leaving Robert to
serve Henry's friends at AstonHall in Shifnal, a town in the
English countryside. Robert, itseems, was no longer in Henry's
good graces. Months later, bothmen were back in London. Henry
busied himself, tying up looseends before sailing back to

(01:11:13):
British America, settlingaccounts with merchants in
Bristol and negotiating a newshipment of enslaved people with
merchants in London on behalf ofa planter in Charleston.He sent
Robert on an errand back toAston Hall, but Robert had no
intention of ever leavingEngland again. He broke into
Aston Hall, stole a ham, amongother things, before he was

(01:11:36):
caught and arrested. Here'sJulie Favell.

Julie Flavell (01:11:40):
Henry was absolutely beside himself, and
he thought, somehow, I have tofind a way to get him back to
Carolina.

Perhaps Robert simply wanted the money for
himself. More likely, he wantedit to start a new life with an
English woman with whom he hadfallen in love. And he may have
realized that despite Somerset'svictory, his own life was still
in danger. Robert was convictedof theft in March, yet Henry
believed he had found a way tokeep hold of his enslaved man.

What Henry wanted to do, he figured Robert would
get transported for the theft,so he'd wanted todo something
which, in my research, I'vediscovered was done by a number
of other planter families, hewould then go to the authorities
and offer to pay for Robert'stransportation, which meant that
when he got back to Carolina, hewould still be Henry's bondsman.

In Great Britain, subjects convicted of certain
crimes were often sentenced totransportation to thecolonies
where they might be put tobetter use expanding the king's
new dominions, instead ofcorrupting the old ones. Henry
believed he could convince theauthorities to release Robert to
his custody and allow him totransport his enslaved man back

(01:12:51):
across the Atlantic.

But Robert wasn't sentenced to transportation. He
was sentenced to a year in jail,and of course, there was nothing
Henry could do to get at himwhile he was detained at His
Majesty's pleasure. Henry had toleave. He had to leave Robert
behind in Britain, and the twomen never saw one another again.
So Robert actually managed toget free in

On June 17, 1773, Phillis Wheatley completed her
second Atlantic crossing whenshe arrived in London. Her first
voyage had been very different.12 years earlier, the captain of
a slaving ship out of Bostonowned by the merchant Thomas
Fitch purchased the captive girlwho would become Phillis in

(01:13:47):
Senegambia. She was probablyeight years old. Phillis spent
months aboard the ship. She wasone of 75 enslaved people who
survived the journey. The voyagewest began with a cargo of 96.
She arrived in Boston in thesummer of 1761, where she was

(01:14:08):
eventually purchased by JohnWheatley as a servant for his
wife, Susanna. The Wheatleysnamed her Phillis after the ship
that carried her to BritishAmerica. The Wheatleys taught
her to read and write English.She learned ancient Greek and
Latin, reading the works of someof the greatest writers of the

(01:14:28):
ancient world. It quickly becameclear that she had a knack for
letters and verse. Soon shebegan writing poetry of her own.
In December 1767, at age 13,Phillis appeared in print for
the first time with a poem inthe pages of Rhode Island's
Newport mercury. More soonfollowed. By 1772 Phillis was

(01:14:52):
making plans to publish a bookof poetry. Publishing most books
in the 18th century requiredpatrons. That was difficult
enough under normalcircumstances to say nothing of
a young woman enslaved. Despitesupporters in Boston, Phillis
and the Wheatleys believed thather best chance was in London,
the heart of the Britishpublishing world. In the summer

(01:15:15):
of 1773, Phillis accompanied theWheatleys son,Nathaniel, to
England. They arrived one yearafter the conclusion of James
Somerset's case. Armed withletters of introduction from
some of Boston's leading men,Phillis gained the support for
the publication of her book fromprominent Britons such as Selina

(01:15:36):
Hastings, Countess of Huntingdonand Lord Dartmouth, one of His
Majesty's Secretaries of State.She had an audience with
Benjamin Franklin, who had beenliving in London for years,
lobbying the British governmenton behalf of several colonies.
She may have nearly had anaudience with the King. Like
many British Americans beforeher, she toured the British

(01:15:57):
Museum, visited the Tower ofLondon and marveled at
Westminster Abbey. On more thanone occasion, her tour guide was
one of Somerset's chiefadvocates, Granville Sharp. By
the summer of 1773, Phillis wasnot only a gifted poet, she was
also a shrewd businesswoman witha strong negotiating hand.

(01:16:20):
Surely she knew of Somerset'svictory before she left Boston.
Surely she knew that, once inEngland, Nathaniel Wheatley
could not force her to returnhome. At the close of their six
week visit to London, Phillisgained a promise from Nathaniel
that if she returned to Boston,the family would free her.

(01:16:42):
Phillis began her third andfinal voyage across the Atlantic
on July, 22 1773. Back home inBoston that October, Wheatley
wrote to David Worcester of NewHaven, Connecticut, recounting
her visit to London and her newlife as a free woman. As she
told him, she had taken nochances sending a copy of her

(01:17:03):
manumission papers to friends inLondon for safe keeping. But now
to the business of her book.Phillis book,Poems on various
subjects, religious and moralhad been published in London. It
was the first book of poetrypublished by a British American
of African descent, copies werenow on their way, and the sale

(01:17:24):
of those volumes would helpsupport her. Now that she was
free, as she informed Worcester:

Unknown (01:17:30):
“I expect my Books which are publishd in London in
Capt. Hall, who will be here Ibelieve in 8 or 10 days. I beg
the favour that you would honourthe enclos'd Proposals, & use
your interest with Gentlemen &Ladies of your acquaintance to
subscribe also, for the moresubscribers there are, the more
it will be for my advantage as Iam to have half the sale of the

(01:17:52):
Books, This I am the moresolicitous for, as I am now upon
my own footing and whatever Iget by this is entirely mine, &
it is the Chief I have to dependupon.”

Phillis underestimated the arrival of
the ship Dartmouth by severalweeks. The ship, captained by
James Hall, did not put into theport of Boston until November
28. Phillis had no way ofknowing what else the ship
carried in its hold. TheDartmouth was headed for Boston
with 114 chests of East IndiaCompany

(01:18:27):
tea.
Thanks for listening to WorldsTurned Upside Down. Worlds is a
production of R2 Studios, partof the Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media atGeorgeMason University. I'm your

(01:18:48):
host. Dr Jim ambuske.thisepisode of Worlds Turned Upside
Down is made possible withsupport from a 2024 grant from
the National Endowment for theHumanities. Learn how you can
support the series atr2studios.org, where you'll also
find a complete transcript oftoday's episodes and suggestions
for further reading. Worlds isresearched and written by me

(01:19:11):
with additional research writingand script editing by Jeanette
Patrick. Jeanette Patrick and Iare the executive producers.
Grace Mallon is our Britishcorrespondent. Our lead audio
editor for this episode is Curtdoll of CD squared. Annabelle
Spencer is our graduateassistant. Our thanks to
Christopher Brown, Julie Favell,Trevor Bernard and Chernoh

(01:19:33):
Sesay, Jr. for sharing theirexpertise with us in this
episode. Special. Thanks toGrant Stanton. Thanks also to
our voice actors, Amber Pelham,Anne Furtick, Gillian Macdonald,
Norman Roger, Craig Gallagher,and Adam McNeil. Subscribe to
Worlds on your favorite podcastapp. Thanks, and we'll see you

(01:19:53):
next time you.

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