ABSTRACT
Black petitioning in the Northeast United States appears to have experienced several broad transformations from the Revolutionary period through the antebellum republic. Like the epistolary petitions of Belinda and Cato Hanker, the large majority of black petitions during this period contained but a few signatures. The abundance of black petitions in the post-Revolutionary period also conveys important lessons about the historical trajectories of aggregate political activity. The issue that most united black Americans in Massachusetts was the issue of slavery. The petitions of the 1820s and 1830s display many of these larger patterns of community transformation, just as they express variable refracting identities in the Massachusetts. black population. Petitions at the Massachusetts Archives provide additional insights into the political and organizational activities of black women. The ability to mount a counter-petition testifies to a profound transformation of black politics in Massachusetts, one that bespeaks organization in many ways.
