Founding-era writing
Petition of a Great Number of Blacks, Freemen of This Commonwealth, to the Massachusetts General Court
The petition speaks throughout in the first person plural for "a great Number of Blacks freemen of this common welth." The surviving manuscript carries one signature, Prince Hall's, and is endorsed "Prince Hall's Petition." No list of the other petitioners survives on the document. Some accounts state that members of Boston's African Lodge signed; the manuscript itself does not record them.
Source and edition, with one open question
This copy is in the Jeremy Belknap papers. Belknap was gathering material on slavery in Massachusetts at exactly this moment and described the petition as "an original and curious performance." The Massachusetts Historical Society's own record does not state whether this manuscript is the document filed with the General Court or a copy that reached Belknap; the filed original, if it survives, would be expected in the Massachusetts Archives legislative papers. No claim is made here that the Society holds the legislative original. Separately, the claim found in some later accounts that twenty-two members of Boston's African Lodge signed is not supported by this manuscript, which carries one signature.
EditionMassachusetts Historical Society, Collections Online item 670: the Society's own transcription of the manuscript petition, shown beside images of the document itself. The manuscript is two pages, 33.6 cm by 20.4 cm, in the Jeremy Belknap papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. A near-contemporary printing exists in Mathew Carey's American Museum for 1788 and is used as the comparison witness rather than as copy-text, because it regularized the petitioners' spelling.
TranscriptionMassachusetts Historical Society
Text handlingThe petitioners' own spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are preserved exactly. The Massachusetts Historical Society's transcription prints a modern-spelling gloss in square brackets immediately after each archaic form, as in "senit [senate]"; all 86 of those glosses are removed together with the spaces the transcription placed around them, so that the manuscript's own word rejoins whatever followed it and a gloss standing between a word and its punctuation does not leave a gap before the mark. Three bracketed spans are kept exactly as the transcription shows them, because removing them would either add a word the manuscript may not contain or hide the transcriber's own uncertainty: "[of]" in "the Lives and Lebeties [of] Fellow men", "[s?]" after "thi", and "[motley?]" after "Wotley". Manuscript line endings are rendered as spaces; the two words the writer broke across a line with "=" marks, "Petetioners" and "themselves", are rejoined and the marks dropped. Three words written above the line in the manuscript ("at", "& unjust", "can") are set in sequence as ordinary text, and the one underlined word ("and") keeps its wording without the underline. The petition is one continuous text with no paragraph breaks, so it is one unit. Prince Hall's signature is stored separately. Page markers are dropped, and the second page, which carries only the docket "Prince Hall's Petition", is not imported.
RightsThe 1788 manuscript text is public domain; a faithful transcription of a public-domain manuscript adds no new US copyright. Bare text only is imported, with no institutional site apparatus. Jurisdiction: US.
¶To the Honorable the senit and House of Riprisentetives of the comon Welth of Massachusetts bay in general court assembled Februry 27 1788: The Petition of greet Number of Blacks freemen of this common welth Humbly sheweth that your Petetioners are justly Allarm'd at the enhuman and cruel Treetment that Three of our Brethren free citizens of the Town of Boston Lately Receved; The captain under a Pertence that his vessel was in destres on a Island belo in this Hearber, haven got them on bord put them in Iorns and covred them of, From their Wives & children to be sold for slaves; This being the unhappey state of these poor men What can your Petetioners Expect but to be treeted in the same manner by the same sort of men; What then are our Lives and Lebeties worth if thay may be taken away in shuch a cruel & unjust manner as this; May it Pleas your Honnors we are not encensebel that the good Laws of this State forbedes all such Base axones: Notwithstanding we can aseuer your Honners that maney of our free blacks that have Entred onboard of vessles as seamen and have ben sold for slaves a sum of them we have heard from but no not Who carred them away; Hence is it that maney of us who are good seamen are oblidge to stay at home thru fear and the one help of our time lorter about the streets for want of Imploy. Wereas if thay were Protected in that Lallfull calling thay might git a hanceum Livelihud for themselves and theres: Which in the Setturation thay are now in thay Cannot. One thing more we would bege Leve to Hent -- that is that your Petetioners have for Sumtime past Beheald Whith Greaf Ships cleared out from this Herber for Africa and there thay other steal or case others to steal our Brothers & Sisteres fill there Ships holes full of unhappey Men & Women crouded together, then set out to find the Best market. Seal them there Like Sheep for the Slarter and then Returne hear like Honest men; after haven sported with the Lives and Lebeties [of] Fello men and at the same time call themselves Christions; Blush O Hevens at thi [s?] These our Wotley [motley?] Greevences we cherfully Submeet to your Honores Without Decttateing in the lest -- knowing by Experence that your Honers have and we Trust ever Will in your Wisdom do us that Justes that our Present Condechon Requires, as God and the Good Laws of this Common Welth Shall Decteat you -- as in Deutey Bound your Petetioners Shall Ever Pray Sd,
Prince Hall