Beyond Victimization: African Americans

Steven C. Teel

My approach in the classroom, therefore, is to portray a long and ongoing black freedom movement, a history of African-American protest that has a long, long history.  Until recently, the weakest part of this portrayal has been the colonial and revolutionary period.  Two valuable works began to interest me and move me into a search for materials that could more realistically illustrate the actual nature of the African-American experience during this period.

Gary B. Nash’s Red, White, and Black includes this assessment: “Africans were not merely enslaved.  Indians were not merely driven from the land. . . . . To include Africans and Indians in our history in this way, simply as victims of the more powerful Europeans, is hardly better than excluding them altogether.  It is to render voiceless, nameless, and faceless people who powerfully affected the course of our historical development as a nation” (Nash, 2-3).

Sidney and Emma Kaplan’s The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution first gave me some tools to provide voices, names, and even faces for the revolutionary period.  In the fall of 1989 I began to make use of some petitions for manumission presented in this work.  These petitions were offered by New England slaves to their colonial legislatures, and they powerfully point out the paradox of white colonists who were demanding their freedom from England and at the same time continuing to condone slavery. 

My brief use of this source consisted merely of my reading some of the petitions aloud and conducting a discussion as to their contents.  The discussion was followed by a short writing assignment.

One trick is to include documents of high human interest.  I have no doubt that most students will find, for example, Document 29 which focuses on the personal struggle of slave Peter Hawkins more appealing than say Document 4, James Otis’ abstract rationale for the supremacy of natural law and liberty for enslaved Africans. 

Given the constraints of time in a U.S. History survey course, a lot of trial and error use of these documents will be necessary in order to sort out the documents and discover which are  successful for students.  In some cases there will be a need to expand context for better understanding or alter the order in which the documents are presented to reduce confusion and clarify insights.  A common dilemma ever present in this approach is whether or not to provide long, detailed contexts (as in Document 12) to increase human interest, or whether to provide a shorter context and allow the documents to speak for themselves.

Each of the documents presented should be given to students in the order they appear here and with the accompanying contexts and questions.  Some of the more complex documents (difficult in vocabulary and content) should be read and the questions discussed in class before students are asked to provide written answers.  You should encourage students to work in study groups of four to compare their written responses once they are completed.  Some of the documents should be read and questions answered for homework.  Again study groups of four students should enable students to share their written findings, and students should then be permitted to revise their answers before turning them in for teacher evaluation.

2.  that the paradox of white Americans fighting for their liberty from England, while seeking to continue holding slaves, offered an ideological lever both for New England and Virginia slaves to assert their right to freedom.

3.  that slaves in Virginia were also inspired by the American Revolution to ask for their freedom but that repressive impediments erected by slave holders made such expression more difficult in Virginia.

4.  that increasingly repressive legal restrictions on blacks in Virginia evolved over a period of time in response to events such as Bacon’s Rebellion, the Revolutionary War, and the Gabriel Insurrection.

5.  that these repressive measures were related in part to the size of the Virginia slave population compared with the relatively small slave population of New England.

6.  that slave codes in Virginia left slaves virtually defenseless before the arbitrary whims of their masters.

7.  that legal restrictions bolstering and defining the institution of slavery in Virginia had the effect of restricting the evolution of civil liberties for whites as well.

8.  that separation or return to Africa was a major goal of some blacks even in the Revolutionary era.

9.  that some whites supported and took dangerous risks to obtain freedom for blacks.

10.  that Christian religious groups such as the Quakers and Methodists made major courageous efforts to weaken or end slavery in Virginia.

11.  that part of the black freedom movement in both New England and in Virginia was motivated by the Great Awakening.

12.  that the unity between New England and Virginia in resisting England was a key to American success in the Revolution.

13.  that there were both humanitarian and non-humanitarian reasons for the ending of the African slave trade in Virginia.

14.  that unique geographical and population characteristics of Virginia help to explain the evolution of slavery in Virginia and the response of white Virginian’s to Dunmore’s Proclamation.

15.  that Dunmore’s Proclamation inspired some Virginia slaves to increase their resistance to slavery.

16.  that the British did not take full strategic advantage of the presence of huge numbers of blacks in the South by fully offering and promoting a general emancipation.

17.  that blacks fought heroically both on the American and British sides during the American Revolution in both New England and Virginia.

18.  that during the Revolutionary War some Virginia slave holders would sometimes “free” a slave to serve as a substitute for him in fighting the war, and that enough of these same slave holders reneged on this arrangement that the Virginia legislature had to pass a special law to attempt to ameliorate the practice. 

19.  that the Declaration of Independence underwent several drafts and that Jefferson was forced to strike his exaggerated assertions about the African slave trade.

20.  that after the Revolution, free blacks were increasingly perceived by Virginia slave holders as a threat.

21.  that the more assimilated to white Virginia culture slaves became, the more likely they were to resist the institution of slavery and seek their own freedom.

22. that not only were there fewer slaves in New England compared to Virginia, but New England slaves tended to be proportionally more highly assimilated than blacks in Virginia.

23.  that different assimilation levels of New England slaves compared to Virginia slaves help to account for their greater positive assertion of a right to freedom compared with Virginia slaves.

24.  that personality as well as personal problems and preoccupations (such as Lord Dunmore’s pursuit of land in America) can have a real impact on pivotal historic events (such as Britain’s failure to appreciate the rapidity with which Virginia leaders were moving toward strategies of cooperation with New England in the pursuit of their own independence).

2.  distinguish between a primary and a secondary source.

3.  identify factual patterns drawn from readings of primary sources.

4.  make predictions based upon factual patterns deduced from a reading of primary sources.

5.  make inferences and draw conclusions from facts presented in primary sources.

6.  critically analyze their text (referred to as Jordan) and be able to discover omissions and facts that contradict other sources, including primary sources.

7. assess the credibility of judgments made by historians and offer alternative explanations for historical events.

8.  detect a historian’s bias.

9.  distinguish the tone of a written passage in order to appreciate the feelings of the author.

10.  improve their own writing by developing well thought out written responses shared with fellow students in study groups to questions keyed to primary sources.

11.  distinguish and compare the point of view of individual authors who are describing the same event.

12.  interpret motive from facts and tone appearing in primary sources.

13.  develop greater understanding of human motive by writing from a point of view other than their own. 

14.  defend their own opinions using factual evidence obtained from primary sources.

15.  distinguish fact from opinion by detecting opinion expressed in primary sources.

16.  compare content of primary sources as to fact and relative persuasiveness.

17.  understand and appreciate why there exist many unanswered questions in history.

18.  understand the varied sources of evidence used by historians in conducting their research

19.  realize and appreciate that historians must often deal with partial, contradictory evidence.

20.  understand and appreciate why the kinds of evidence that historians have traditionally used tends to provide an abundance of information on more affluent individuals in history in comparison with lower class people.

21.  realize and appreciate that history is not set and complete, that the search for the past is very much a lively art of historical detection, involving a sometimes tedious but exciting hunt for clues that reveal human motive.

“There has been in town a conspiracy of the negroes.  At present it is kept pretty private, and was discovered by one who endeavored to dissuade them from it . . . . They conducted in this way . . . to draw up a petition to the Governor, telling him they would fight for him provided he would arm them, and engage to liberate them if he conquered.”  She concluded, “I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province; it always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have” (as quoted in Kaplan, 15).

2. What words in this petition might have been inspired by the works of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield? (Review Jordan, 96-7, on the Great Awakening.) 

One of the first Americans to grasp the full importance of the slavery contradiction in the evolving revolutionary philosophy was James Otis.  You will recall that in 1761, as attorney for a group of Boston merchants who objected to the issuance of general search warrants (“writs of assistance”) by British officials, James (“A man’s house is his castle”) Otis argued that a law was invalid if it ran counter to man’s natural rights.  Two years later in this essay, Otis warns that Negro slavery is just such a violation of natural rights.

2.  Do you think that Otis would have been likely to use the same major argument ten years later after the passage of the Intolerable Acts?  Explain why or why not.

3.  In what ways might this major argument complicate and make more difficult unity between the New England and Southern colonies in resisting perceived threats to their liberties?

2. Based on Abigail Adams’s letter to her husband quoted in Jordan on page 132, how might she have reacted to the final Declaration of Independence?  Write a three paragraph letter to Thomas Jefferson criticizing the Declaration and explaining what is wrong with it from Abigail’s point of view.

3. How might illiterate women and blacks have learned what was said in the Declaration?  Describe the many ways that these people could have learned what was going on without being able to read or write.

4. Would an illiterate woman or enslaved African’s knowledge of current events be greater living in New England compared with living in Virginia?  Explain why or why not.

5. Write a three paragraph letter to Thomas Jefferson criticizing the Declaration and explaining what is wrong with it from an enslaved African’s point of view.

“In the evening . . . two gentlemen from Georgia, came into our room . . . .  These gentlemen gave a melancholy account of the State of Georgia and South Carolina.  They say that if one thousand regular troops should land in Georgia, and their commander be provided with arms and clothes enough, and proclaim freedom to all the negroes who would join his camp, twenty thousand negroes would join it from the two Provinces in a fortnight.  The negroes have a wonderful art of communicating intelligence among themselves; it will run several hundreds of miles in a week or fortnight.  They say their only security is this; that all the king’s friends, and tools of government, have large plantations and property in negroes; so that the slaves of the Tories would be lost, as well as those of the Whigs.”

This was particularly true in the piedmont and mountain frontier regions of western Virginia.  Support came also from younger, well-educated Virginians such as Thomas Jefferson.  The greatest force for emancipation, however, came from Quaker and Methodist churches. 

A partial victory occurred with passage of the manumission law of 1782 which empowered a master to free his slave without first obtaining legislative permission.  This law also required of  slave-owners who manumitted slaves over forty-five years of age the duty to provide for their maintenance, in order that they would not become burdens to the taxpayer.  It was in this same spirit of fairness that in 1783 the Virginia legislature had passed a law which protected blacks from whites who were abusing the substitute law.  At this time the legislature also freed by special act and at the expense of the state any slave who could prove any honorable service rendered by him to the American revolutionary cause. 

The free black population at that time was about 3,000.  Within two years after the 1782 law, this population had doubled.  In eight years the free black population was nearly 13,000, by 1800 it was 20,000, and by 1810 it had reached over 30,000.  From 1782 to 1806 manumission of slaves reached its peak.  As troops returned home and labor shortages eased, many masters made money by granting deeds of manumission paid for by slaves or humanitarian benefactors such as Quakers. 

These developments touched off a reaction among many slave holders who perceived the free blacks as a growing menace.  Efforts began to restrict the free black population or to end private manumission.  These efforts, given a great boost by the revelation of the Gabriel Plot, led to legislation enacted in 1806 requiring that all slaves manumitted after 1 May 1806 be required to leave the state.  [Source for much of this context, including estimates of the free black population in Virginia is Russell, The Free Negro, chapter 3.] 

2. How do you believe the owner was able to gain his own freedom?  How did he accumulate enough money to purchase his wife and child?  Is there any way of knowing these facts?  How would you go about trying to find out?  What sorts of sources would be helpful in answering these questions?

3. From all we have studied so far, give as complete an explanation as you can from the point of view of a Virginia slave holder, as to why slaves ran away during the Revolution or joined with Dunmore’s forces. 

4. Notice how frequently Christian religion is mentioned in this petition.  Review Document 1.  How do you account for the similarities in the arguments being used?  Where did the religious content in Document 1 come from? 

5. Summarize how free blacks are portrayed in these petitions for emancipation.

6. In Document 7, what service did Saul perform in the Revolutionary War?  What reasons does he give for being granted his freedom?  Who is supporting his petition for manumission?

In another part of this report to the Virginia legislature on the Gabriel plot, Tucker comments on the efforts of blacks to join the British in 1775 and argues that the difference between that attempt and the thwarted attempt of Gabriel and his followers was that whereas in 1775 slaves “fought [for] freedom merely as a good; now they also claim it as a right.” 

A major effect of the Gabriel Revolt was passage by the Virginia legislature of a new law that required all slaves freed after 1 May 1806 to leave the state within twelve months.  It went on to require that, “if any slave hereafter emancipated shall remain within this Commonwealth more than twelve months after his or her right to freedom shall have accrued, he or she shall forfeit all such right and may be apprehended and sold by the overseers of the poor for any county or corporation in which he or she shall be found for the benefit of the poor of such county or corporation.” 

The law failed to provide for where newly freed slaves might go.  Many blacks, including those already free but fearful of getting caught up in the enforcement of the new law, fled to bordering states.  In the years that followed, Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee all passed laws restricting the entrance of free blacks.  These events gave impetus to the formation of colonization societies that would organize largely failed efforts to return blacks to Africa (note the full title of Tucker’s letter).

The 1806 law also has helped historians to find out more about the lives of slaves and their relationships with their masters.  Because of its passage hundreds of petitions were addressed to the legislature to ask for an exception to the penalty provision of the law by showing that the petitioner was not a threat to the state, possessed a positive character, etc.  While most of the petitions were written by white lawyers, in many cases they appear to have been written by black petitioners.  Document 9 is an example of how revealing to historians these petitions can be.  [Source for 1806 law is Russell, 70; Tucker quotes comparing 1775 slave revolts with Gabriel Insurrection are from Mullin, 157.]

2. As you read the Harding account, look for any references to free blacks being involved in the plot.  Do you think there is sufficient evidence of involvement of free blacks to warrant the new 1806 law?  What happened to this plot?

3. What reasons does Tucker give for why slave revolts might occur in Virginia?  List examples of his reasons in Harding’s account. 

4. What does Tucker say was a different reason that some white Virginians gave for the “change in the temper and views of the Negroes?”

5. Do Harding and Tucker agree on what the major inspiration for the Gabriel Insurrection was?  For Harding, what was the major inspiration?  Give reasons for your answer.  For Tucker, what was the major inspiration?  Give reasons for your answer.

6. Review Document 6.  What special problem was created by the new 1806 law for someone in the same situation as Peter Hawkins was in 1800?  Would Peter Hawkins have been as likely to do in 1806 what he did in 1800?  Why or why not?

7. What would be your prediction regarding the number of private manumissions that occurred after 1806?  Give reasons for your prediction.

8. In Document 9, what did you learn about the slave Amanda? 

9. How did Amanda’s owner, Mary Austin, feel about her slave?  Why did she feel this way?

10.  What (not directly mentioned) was Mary Austin asking for in this petition?  What did this unmentioned request have to do with Mary’s “endeavour to form in the said Amanda till the age of eighteen habits of industry and virtue”? 

Davidson, James West and Mark Hamilton Lytle. After the Fact: the Art of Historical Detection. New York: Knopf, 1982.

Fishel, Leslie H. and Benjamin Quarles, eds. The Negro American: A Documentary History. Glenview, Ill.: Scott Foresman, 1967.

Frey, Sylvia R. “Between Slavery and Freedom: Virginia Blacks in the American Revolution.” Journal of Southern History 49 (August 1983).

Harding, Vincent. There Is A River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America. New York: Vintage, 1983.

Hening, William Waller. The Statutes at Large, Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia. 13 vols. Richmond, Va., 1809-23.

Isaac, Rhys. The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.

Johnston, J.H. Documents collected and prepared for, Journal of Negro History (October, 1927).

Jordan, Winthrop. The Americans: the History of a People and a Nation.  Evanston, Ill.: McDougal, Littell, 1988).

Kaplan, Sidney and Emma N. Kaplan. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989.

Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: the Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.

Mullin, Gerald W. Flight and Rebellion: Slave Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Virginia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.

Nash, Gary B. Red, White, and Black: the Peoples of Early America. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982)

Palmer, W.P., et al., eds. Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, 1652-1869. 11 vols. Richmond, Va., 1875-93.

Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961.

Russell, John Henderson. The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865. New York: Dover, 1969.

Selby, Joel E. The Revolution in Virginia: 1775-1783. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1988.

Sobel, Mechal. The World They Made Together: Black and White Values in Eighteenth Century Virginia. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987.

Schwarz, Philip J. Twice Condemned: Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia, 1705-1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Van Schreeven, William J., Robert L. Scribner, and Brent Tarter, eds. Revolutionary Virginia: the Road to Independence, a Documentary Record. 8 vols. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1973-1983.
 

“Your Petitioners apprehind we have in common with all other men a naturel right to our freedoms without Being depriv’d of them by our fellow men as we are a freeborn Pepel and have never forfeited this Blessing by aney compact or agreement whatever.  But we were unjustly dragged by the cruel hand of power from our dearest frinds and sum of us stolen from the bosoms of our tender Parents and from a Populous Pleasant and plentiful country and Brought hither to be made slaves for Life in a Christian land.  Thus we are deprived of every thing that hath a tendency to make life even tolerable, the endearing ties of husband and wife we are strangers to . . . . Our children are also taken from us by force and sent maney miles from us . . . . Thus our Lives are imbittered . . . . There is a great number of us sencear. . . members of the Church of Christ how can the master and the slave be said to fulfil that command Live in love let Brotherly Love contuner and abound Beare my Borden when he Beares me down with the  . . . Chanes of slavery . . . . Nither can we reap an equal benefet from the laws of the Land which doth not justifi but condemns Slavery or if there had bin aney Law to hold us in Bondage . . . there never was aney to inslave our children for life when Born in a free Countrey.  We therefore Bage your Excellency and Honours will . . . cause an act of the legislative to be pessed that we may obtain our Natural right our freedoms and our children to be set a lebety at the yeare of twenty one.”

When resubmitted in June, 1774, the petitioners added these words: “give and grant to us some part of the unimproved land, belonging to the province, for a settlement, that each of us may there quietly sit down under his own fig tree” and enjoy “the fruits of his labour.”

Both petitions were rejected without debate.
 

“The Colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black.  No better reasons can be given, for enslaving those of any colour, than such as baron Montesquieu has humourously given, as the foundation of that cruel slavery excercised over the poor Ethiopians; which threatens one day to reduce both Europe and America to the ignorance and barbarity of the darkest ages.  Does it follow that it is right to enslave a man because he is black?  Will short curled hair, like wool, instead of Christian hair, as it is called by those whose hearts are as hard as the nether millstone, help the argument?  Can any logical inference in favour of slavery, be drawn from a flat nose, a long or a short face?  Nothing better can be said in favour of a trade, that is the most shocking violation of the law of nature, has a direct tendency to diminish the idea of the inestimable value of liberty, and makes every dealer in it a tyrant, from the director of an African company to the petty chapman in needles and pins on the unhappy coast.  It is a clear truth, that those who every day barter away other mens liberty, will soon care little for their own.” 
 

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.—We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.  In every state of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.  A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
 

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who vever offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.  This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel  powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain.  Determined to keep open a market where Men  should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative [used his veto power] for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.  And that this assemblage of horors might want no fact of distinguishing die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
 

To all whom these presents may come know ye, that I Peter Hawkins a free black man of the City of Richmond having purchased my wife Rose, a slave about twenty-two years of age and by her have a child called Mary now about 18 mo. old, for the love I bear toward my wife and child have thought proper to emancipate them and for the further consideration of five shillings to me in hand paid . . . I emancipate and set free the said Rose and Mary . . . and relinquish all my right title and interest and claim whatsoever as slaves to the said Rose and Mary.

Peter Hawkins (Seal)
 

“In the beginning of the late war which gave America freedom, your petitioner shouldered his musket and repaired to the American standard, regardless of invitations trumpeted up by British proclamations for the slaves to emancipate themselves by becoming the assassins of their owners.  Your petitioner avoided the rock that too many of his colour were shipwrecked on.  He was taught that the war was levied on Americans not for the emancipation of the blacks, but for the subjugation of the whites, and he thought that the number of bondsmen ought not to be augmented.  Under these impressions he did actually campaign in both armies—in the American army as a soldier, in the British as a spy;  which will fully appear reference being had to certificates of officers of respectibility.  In this double profession your petitioner flatters himself that he rendered essential service to his country.”

A note accompanied this petition:

“Be it known by all to whom it may concern: That Saul, formerly the property of Thomas Mathews, Esquire, during the different invasions of the state by the British army in the late war, left his residence in the city of Norfolk and joined the troups of this state under my command, and when under my authority acted in such a manner as to merit my particular approbation and in my opinion to deserve the applause of his country.  In many instances he was more serviceable than if he had been white.  From his colour he had the opportunity of visiting the camps of the enemy from which he brought me much valuable information respecting their numbers, and was not only serviceable to me and my command but useful to different officers in the Southern states with whom I had the honor to correspond and from whence they often got information that could not else be so easily assertained.  As may be assertained from letters from Gen. Green, the Marquise de la Fayette, Baron Steuben, Gen. Wayne, Gen. Muhlenberg, the last of which was personally acquainted with some of Saul’s services.  Independent of his service as a spy, when unemployed in that way he was always employed with the flankers in advance with his picquet.

It would be presumptious for me to say how Saul should be rewarded by his country but I can with truth declare that his service was as meritorious and more so than could be expected of a slave, and I venture to say that he who has done so much in the cause of freedom deserves to share a part of it.”

“J. Parker”
 

“There is a progress in human affairs which may indeed be retarded, but which nothing can arrest . . . .  Of such sort is the advancement of knowledge among the negroes of this country . . . .  Every year adds to the number of those who can read and write; and he who has made any proficiency in letters, becomes a little centre of instruction to others.  This increase of knowledge is the principal agent in the spirit we have to fear.  The love of freedom, sir, is an inborn sentiment . . . long may it be kept under by the arbitrary institutions of society, but, at the first favorable moment, it springs forth, and flourishes with a vigour that defies all check.

In our infant country, where population and wealth increase with unexampled rapidity . . . .  The growth and multiplication of our towns tend a thousand ways to enlight and inform them.  The very nature of our government, which leads us to recur perpetually to the discussion of natural rights, favors speculation and enquiry.

But many of those, who see and acknowledge this change in the temper and views of the Negroes, ascribe it principally to the mild treatment they have of late years experienced . . . . 

We have hitherto placed much reliance on the difficulty of their acting in concert.  Late experience has shewn us . . . they have maintained a correspondence, which, whether we consider its extent, or duration, is truly astonishing . . .  Fanaticism is spreading fast among the Negroes of this country, and may form in time the connecting link between black religionists and the white.  Do you not, already, sir, discover something like a sympathy between them?  It certainly would not be a novelty, in the history of the world, if Religion were made to sanctify plots and conspiracies.” 
 

“Your petitioner, Mary Austin, of Hanover County, begs leave to represent to the General Assembly that she is possessed of a Negro woman aged about fifteen years named Amanda.  That the said Amanda, whilst an infant, had her mother taken away from her and was affected with a long and painful illness, during which time your petitioner from motives of duty and humanity nursed her.  That your petitioner during her attentions to the said Amanda formed, perhaps unfortunately, a strong and from its continuance, it seems, a lasting attachment for her.  And it is now the inclination and intention of your petitioner to endeavour to form in the said Amanda till the age of eighteen habits of industry and virtue.  Your petitioner knowing that without interposition of the General Assembly she can make no disposition of the said Amanda, consistently with the laws of the State and impressed with feelings the most abhorrent and distressing of leaving the said Amanda in slavery at the death of your petitioner, therefore, hopes that the General Assembly will see no injury to the State which compares with the happiness of your petitioner in this particular which will forbid the emancipation of the said Amanda.”