What are at least two different examples of how Black Americans protested in favor of freedom and/or against slavery in actions or in words during the years before the Declaration of Independence (1776)? (Consider, for example, Peter Bestes and Phillis Wheatley.) How did those in power – British authorities or white Patriot revolutionaries – respond to these actions or statements of protest? (Consider, for example, the statements of Lord Dunmore and Thomas Jefferson.) Why do you think that claims to rights on the part of African Americans and debates on the issue of slavery intensified on the eve of the Revolution? Required sections in Holton, Black Americans: Introduction, Documents – The Coming of the Revolution.

Read Woody Holton, Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era. Read the Introduction with particular care because it gives you a context for the sets of documents that follow. Try to get a sense of which set of documents interests you most, and then focus your paper based on that decision.