ABSTRACT
In January 1777 a group of slaves delivered a petition for their freedom to the Massachusetts Council and House of Representatives. Echoing the language of the Declaration of Independence, the petitioners invoked the discourse of social contract theory to make their case, declaring the document “shows that your Petitioners Apprehend that They have in Common with all other men a Natural and Inalienable Right to that freedom which the Great Parent of the Universe hath Bestowed equally on all mankind.”1 They later point to the logical inconsistency by which a population can assert their right to self-determination by casting off the shackles of colonial bondage, and yet continue to enslave fellow humans. The real power of this petition, though, is that it appeals to feeling as much as to reason. Giving force to the cool logic of egalitarian argument, the document quickly shifts in register from logos to pathos, for it acts as testimonial, bearing witness to the pain of those unnamed thousands who have been “Unjustly Dragged by the hand of cruel Power from their Dearest friends and some of them Even torn from the Embraces of their tender Parents . . . in defiance of all the tender feelings of humanity.” The petitioners claim a natural right to just treatment based on a shared humanity with their readers, one evidenced by the affective bonds of the African family. Living in an Anglo-American culture that is deeply imbued with sentimentality, they demonstrate a shrewd understanding that invoking the language of feeling might wield a political force beyond appeals to mere reason.
