Imagining Liberty - Module 6 Pt. 1

Imagining Liberty - Module 6

Inclusion, Exclusion, and Independence - Part 1

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Module Overview

• How was the Declaration of Independence supported by ideas of liberty, justice, and anti-tyranny?

• How did different social groups experience and interpret these messages?
• Who was included and why?
• Who was excluded and why?

The Declaration’s Effect: Consent of the Governed

• The Declaration Establishes:
• No government rules
• through divine right
• Rights are inalienable (specifically life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness)
• “All men” created equal

The Declaration’s Effect: Right to Rebel

• The Declaration Establishes:
• If a government does not live up to its protection of these rights then the people are right to rebel and should do so

Excerpts from the Declaration

“They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”“Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish

“All men are created equal” “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed”

“The ideals of liberty and equality proclaimed during the American Revolution reverberated far beyond the chambers of Congress…They stirred hopes in places the founders rarely thought to look” - Dr. Steven Mintz, historian, University of Texas

Consider: In those excerpts, what promises seem to be made to the people of this potential new American country?

Prediction: Who do you think these promises are intended for? Who will get them?

George Washington, discussing his fears about British rule over the colonies in 1774 in a letter to his friend: “We must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us; till custom and use, will make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway” Letter from George Washington

The Pre-Revolution Included Class

• Citizen/voting power in 1776
• White
• Male
• Property Owners
• Over 21
• Rules varied slightly by colony

Portraits of the signers of the Declaration

The Pre-Revolution Excluded Classes

• Non-Voting In 1776
• Women
• Free Black people
• Enslaved people
• Native people
• Poor White men
• Indentured servants
• Younger sons
• Consider: Why did the founders include “all men” language if they knew these gaps existed?

Slavery and the Declaration

• Slavery was not a side issue, but central to the Revolution in many ways
• Slavery often seen as key to the economy
• Many Founding Fathers owned enslaved people
• A majority of signers of the Declaration either owned enslaved people or participated in the slave trade

“Though the Declaration of Independence spoke of equality, the founders largely excluded the enslaved. Far from opposing slavery, parts of the Revolution were driven by a desire to preserve it.”- Dr. Steven Mintz, historian, University of Texas

Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (1775)

• Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, desperate to weaken revolutionary activity declares martial law
• Offers freedom to enslaved men who join the British cause
• Terrifies slaveholding American colonists, pushing many towards independence to protect slavery
• Dunmore himself owned slaves throughout this process

The Declaration and Slavery

• Over 500,000 enslaved people across the thirteen colonies, significant population
• Almost entirely sold from Africa or born
• into slavery
• No political or legal rights
• A draft of the Declaration criticized slavery and the slave trade as another grievance against Britain, but was removed during Congress’s revisions
• “He has waged cruel war against human nature”

The Declaration as a Foundation to Fight Exclusion

• Black Americans often asked “why wouldn’t this include me?”
• Many Black intellectuals of the time emphasized the radical language of the document that did not match their experience even after the Revolution

• Shows the Declaration matters to more than just the class who wrote it

• Political paradox of ideas of freedom clashing with slavery that would define the countries’ early history

Black Leaders in the Revolutionary Era

Click on each portrait to reveal the leaders information

• Leader of Boston’s free Black community
• Petitioned Massachusetts Legislature to abolish slavery in 1777
• Founded first African American Masonic lodge as a space for Black civic thought

Prince Hall

• Published books of poetry
• Wrote openly about liberty and enslaved people’s desire for freedom
• Challenged White readers by using Christianity and classical references in observing slavery’s evil

Phillis Wheatley

“In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call Love of Freedom” - Phillis Wheatley, letter published in the Connecticut Journal and others (1774)

“The blacks as well as the whites are born free and should enjoy the same rights” - Prince Hall in his petition to the Massachusetts Legislature (1777)

Black Leaders in the Revolutionary Era

Click on each portrait to reveal the leaders information

• Free Soldier, Businessman
• Served on a Privateer, captured
• Rejected British citizenship in exchange for freedom
• Later became a wealthy antislavery activist

James Forten

• Mathematician, Astronomer
• Self-taught
• Published almanacs
• Wrote to Jefferson criticizing the Declaration
• His intellect would later be used as proof intelligence and race are equal

Benjamin Banneker

“In detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the Same time be found guilty of the most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves”- Benjamin Banneker, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson about the Declaration of Independence

Activity: Banneker’s Letter

• Read Banneker’s Letter to Jefferson and find the words and phrases that mirror the Declaration’s language
• Mark wherever the language is flipped against slavery or exclusion
• Consider: How does this compare to today’s use of the Declaration?

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