These everyday people had many things in common with those celebrating independence, but they wanted no part of it themselves. The signers included farmers, merchants, and free people of African descent. Meanwhile, 547 Loyalists in New York signed a Declaration of Dependence, affirming their loyalty to the British Empire. He also disputed many of the grievances laid out in the Declaration, attempting to logically disprove them. In it he accused the Continental Congress of hypocrisy for suggesting that man’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was inalienable while allowing so many enslaved people to be deprived of those same rights. Former Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson penned a rebuttal to the Declaration entitled Strictures Upon the Declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia. Some chose to publish their disagreements, citing what they considered to be lies and falsehoods in the document and disputing its logic. Many of them felt that the Continental Congress’ actions were illegal and did not represent the views of most American colonists.Īs the Declaration spread throughout the states, people began to analyze its words. They wanted to remain part of the British Empire for all the benefits it offered, political or moral stances they held, or a variety of other reasons. Loyalists, however, were distressed over how far Revolutionaries had gone. Now many felt they were no longer just thirteen separate colonies protesting, they were self-governing states united behind a worthy cause. The Declaration of Independence had helped them see how British policy had impacted colonists throughout North America. Others embraced the idea of independence and began to find common ground with fellow Revolutionaries that they did not think they had. Imagine what it must have felt like to join a movement with one goal, only to watch it change into a different, more drastic one. Some Revolutionaries were uneasy about this significant change. Protests to alter British policy had turned into full-blown rebellion. Regardless of what political position they held, they all felt the impact of the new goal of independence in some way.įor Revolutionaries, independence was a possibility that many had not expected or even considered as recently as a year before. Others simply hoped that they would escape the war without loss or suffering. “This Sir, was a time in which you clearly saw into the injustice of a State of Slavery,” Banneker told Jefferson, before upbraiding him for “detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression.” In the 19th century, feminists as well as abolitionists would focus the nation’s attention on the Declaration’s allusions to equality and unalienable rights.When word of the decision on independence spread, Revolutionaries celebrated it while Loyalists considered it an act of betrayal. In a 1791 letter to Thomas Jefferson, who was then secretary of state, Benjamin Banneker reminded him what he had said in 1776. Other abolitionists, Black and White, carried on his campaign to highlight the Declaration’s insistence upon equality and rights. denomination, had written an essay that opened with Jefferson’s insistence that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Haynes thus set in motion a shift in the essential focus of the Declaration: from states’ rights to human rights. But before the year 1776 was out, Lemuel Haynes, who later became the first Black man in the United States ordained a minister by a mainstream U.S. The Declaration focused on justifying the 13 colonies’ secession from Britain. With less fanfare, other colonial officials, especially Royal Navy captains, also accepted Black volunteers. Later that day, the governor issued an emancipation proclamation, promising freedom to rebels’ enslaved people who served in his army. 15, 1775, Dunmore’s Black troops defeated a Patriot militia force, with the Patriot commander being captured by one of his own former enslaved men. At first the British refused, but eventually Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, began quietly welcoming African Americans to what he called his “Ethiopian Regiment.” On Nov. Over the next 12 months, African Americans all over the South made essentially this pitch to beleaguered royal officials: You are outnumbered, you need us - and we will fight for you if you will free us. Starting in November 1774 - five months before the Battles of Lexington and Concord - Blacks in the Virginia Piedmont gathered to assess how to use the impending conflict between colonists and crown to gain their own freedom.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |