Featuring: Larry Kenneth Alexander
Transcript:
In 1783, the streets of New York became a battleground of a different kind when news of a preliminary peace treaty with England became known in the 13 colonies. Americans began kidnapping black colonials with terrifying impunity. Blacks were being kidnapped off public streets, in their homes, ripped from churches, and enslaved in America. Though a peace treaty had been reached, declaring a cessation of hostilities between England and America, a new sinister conflict was taking shape. The kidnappings were widespread, organized, and they broke the cessation of hostility truce between England and America.
Boston King, a black loyalist, stood in the heart of it all, watching in horror as his brothers and sisters were ripped from their newfound safety. “This dreadful rumor,” he wrote, “filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror, especially when we saw our old masters coming from Virginia, North Carolina, and other parts, and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New York, or even dragging them out of their beds. Many of the slaves had very cruel masters,” Boston King recalled, “so that the thoughts of returning home with them embittered life to us.”
The kidnappings were not just acts of desperation. They were acts of war, a violation of the treaty between England and America. And yet, despite the truce, no one tried to stop it. America’s leaders turned a blind eye, many of them complicit, perhaps even pleased to see the return of property they thought lost forever.
In May of 1783, General Guy Carleton, the man now commanding the last remnants of British forces in the American colonies, learned of the abductions. A soldier by trade and a man of principle, Carleton knew this could not stand. From where he stood, America had secured a fair bargain in the Treaty of Paris. However, they now appeared to be dissatisfied as they had come to know that a protection they thought they had, they did not by law, since ownership of other men was not recognized under English law during colonial rule.
But to Carleton, these black men and women were not slaves. They were his countrymen and free Englishmen. Furious, Carleton called for a meeting with the American delegation. Leading the Americans was General George Washington, the hero of the revolution, now tasked with overseeing the nation’s fragile peace.
In a frank conversation with Washington, Carleton labeled the abductions as renewed hostilities, and Washington was told that it was the official policy and position of the British imperial government that all former black slaves were free British subjects and entitled to certificates of freedom. Washington disagreed, stating that black colonials were property owned by American citizens under colonial statutes, and he asked that they be surrendered.
However, Carleton refused, stating that he had no intention of surrendering any black individuals to Washington since they were promised protection and liberty. Washington then cited Article VII of the Treaty of Paris, which barred the carrying away of Negroes and other property by the British. Carleton scoffed, saying colonial slave statutes were never lawfully codified and were abolished by Parliament’s American Colonies Act of 1766.
As the Somerset decision determined, slavery in the kingdom was not authorized by law. His American citizens did not own black colonials during colonial rule, and therefore, no enslaved black individual was property belonging to American citizens. This forceful repudiation of slave laws stunned Washington and left him speechless.
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