Introduction to the primary source written by James G. Basker, from James G. Basker (editor) with Nicole Seary, Black Writers of the Founding Era: 1760–1800 (New York: Library of America, 2023), p. 218.
“Published in the same issue of the Freeman’s Journal as Cato’s appeal, this petition by an anonymous group of recently freed African Americans in Philadelphia conveys the emotion and urgency of people who are in immediate danger of losing everything: ‘Our all is at stake . . . if we are silent this day, we may be silent forever.’ They cite both ‘the common rights of mankind’ and the language of the law that had freed them, in which state legislators, flush with the prospect of American independence, had written ‘we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others, which hath been extended to us.’ The defeat of the treacherous amendment the day after this plea was published preserved the freedom of these petitioners and thousands of other Black Pennsylvanians.”
To the honourable the Representatives of the Freemen of the State of Pennsylvania
We are fully sensible, that an address from persons of our rank is wholly unprecedented, and we are fearful of giving offence in the attempt; but touched in the most sensible manner, by a dread of being deprived of that liberty which we have obtained under the late law, we venture to appear before you. In the act which gave us our freedom, we read with gratitude and joy those admirable sentiments contained in the preamble a part of which we beg leave to repeat. It begins with these pathetic words: “When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition, to which the army and tyranny of Great-Britain were exerted to reduce us; when we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have been exposed, and how miraculously our wants in many instances have been supplied, and our deliverances wrought, when even hope and human fortitude had become unequal to the conflict, we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful sense of the manifold blessings which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that being, from whom every good and perfect gift cometh. Impressed with these ideas, we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others, which hath been extended to us, and a release from that state of thraldom, to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being speedily relieved,” &c. We your petitioners are a few amongst the great number in this state, who have derived freedom from that clause which directs all slaves to be registered by a certain day, of which we have obtained certificates from the clerk of the sessions.
Just emerging from a state of hereditary slavery, and enjoying the sweets of that freedom so forceably described in the preamble, it is with the utmost poignancy of grief, that we are informed your honourable house are about to pass a law to return us to our late masters, and allow them a still further time for registering us as slaves. Whilst it pleased the great author of our beings to continue us in slavery, we submitted to our hard lot, and bore it with habitual patience; but rescued from our misery, and tasting the sweets of that liberty, for the defence of which this whole continent is now involved in war, we shall deem our selves the most wretched of the human race, if the proposed act should take place. Raised to the pinnacle of human happiness by a law unsought and unexpected by us, we find ourselves plunged into all the horrors of hateful slavery; made doubly irksome by the small portion of freedom we have already enjoyed. Not having by any act of ours deprived ourselves of the common rights of mankind, we were happy to find the house sympathing in our distress, and declaring that we had hitherto “lived in undeserved bondage” &c. “We cannot therefore persuade ourselves to believe that this honorable house, possessed of such sentiments of humanity and benevolence, will pass an act to make slaves of those whom they have freed by law; and to whom they have restored” the common blessings “they were by nature entitled to.” We fear we are too bold, but our all is at stake. The grand question of slavery or liberty, is too important for us to be silent—It is the momentous person of our lives; if we are silent this day, we may be silent for ever; returned into slavery we are deprived of even the right of petitioning; and this emboldens us to grasp the present moment, and to pray on behalf of ourselves and a number of our unhappy colour, that this house will not pass the bill. And we further pray that you may long possess that heart felt peace and joy, which will ever arise in the humane breast, when successfully employed in the relief of misery and distress.
Fearful of the danger and delay, we have not allowed ourselves time to collect the names of others within this city, whose cases are similar to ours, but on the feelings of the honorable house and not on our numbers do we build our hopes.
Source: “Negroes Who Obtained Freedom”: “To the Honourable the Representatives of the Freemen of the State of Pennsylvania,” The Freeman’s Journal (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), September 21, 1781, p. 1. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC05818. In James G. Basker (editor) with Nicole Seary, Black Writers of the Founding Era: 1760–1800, New York: Library of America, 2023, pp. 218–220.