Ziying Chen

Hist 7A
Prof. Sachtjen
4 February 2016
Document Interpretation: Taxation without Representation

Natural and Inalienable Right to Freedom: Slaves Petition for Freedom to the
Massachusetts Legislature, 1777 is a legal government document presented in the General
Court of the State of Massachusetts to the state House of Representatives on January 17, 1777.
This petition is a reliable primary source. Thomas Paine, a political activist wrote an essay called
Common Sense, to urge the establishment of republican government in America; and a young
Virginia planter named Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence in the
year of 1776. Americans were encouraged to fight against the British by the principle that
expressed an idea of All men are created equal (Brands 119-120). As the nation trying to build
an independent government, the human rights issue had aroused, especially the rights of those
African Americans people who are enslaved.
This document was submitted to the State of Massachusetts and it was out of the many
petitions that sent to courts during the American Revolutionary War asking to free enslaved
African Americans in this country and give them the rights they supposed to have as humans.
This document intended to draw attentions of the society that slavery is cruel as well as keeping
the children of those enslaved people to serve as slaves when they grew up is even tortures to
them. One of the reasons that the petitioners listed in the petition for ending the problem of
slavery is that all mankind are equal and should be treated equally. It also indicated that slavery
violated the Natural Law. Another reason is related to the religion belief they had since most of

them believed in Jesus. Lastly, it [the petitioners] requested the legislature to free their
descendants who were born in the land of America from slavery, so that they can live on their
own lives.
In the petition, the statement of ...all other men a Natural and Unaliable [inalienable] Right to
that freedom is a reference of the idea of All men are created equal in the Declaration of
Independence. Also, the statement in the petition mentioned violation of Laws of Nature. It
connected with the Declaration of Independence because it was believed built on the natural law,
which is in the philosophy perspective, rights and justices derived from nature instead of from
the rules of the society.
In my opinion, the most convincing argument in the petition is that it applied the idea of
an authorized statement, which is the United States Declaration of Independence that ratified in
the year of 1776, which the year before this petition is sent to the General Court of
Massachusetts. I believe that it provided powerful evidences or supports for the House to
consider whether to approve the petition or not. Moreover, the voice used in the petition was
quite persuasive since it led to the concern of the descendants of enslaved people, their lives in
the future and how this nation going to fight for its dependence to create its own government.
Until the year of 1783. After the revolution, the Supreme Court announced in the case of Quock
Walker, a slave in the States of Massachusetts, to abolish slavery in Massachusetts.