A conmment on Anne Pemberton's post:

Thinking over Jeff's assertion that those who were enslaved should not
be described as "African Americans", I hit the following passage in this
book: 

Foul Means, written by Anthony S. Parent, Jr. on pg 152-55.

The author describes one of the many attempts by blacks to win their
freedom from slavery. The plot came to light in March, 1709. The plot
was determined to have spanned several counties. The supposed leaders
were rounded up and tried before the oyer and terminer courts of the
respective counties.

{{was a curious charge for an
enslaved laborer who owed no allegiance to the state.}} 

Admittedly, this took place before Virginia joined the US of A, but if,
as Jeff asserts, these people were chattels from the beginning, and
could not therefore have been British Subjects, or after 1783,
Americans, how could they be found guilty of high treason? Can a cow be
found guilty of high treason? How about a horse? A pig maybe?

Seems as if the courts considered them citizens of Britain when it
suited them, and as "chattel" when it suited them.



The critical distinction here is between citizenship and subjectship:  slaves would not owe allegiance to a state if that state assumed allegiance based on citizenship.   But colonial Virginia based allegiance on subjecthsip -- and everyone was a subject of the King.  In a monarchial system, the top of the social order is bounded by the person of the King (or Queen), but there is no "bottom" to the hierarchy: from the mightiest aristocrat down through the ranks to the penniless pauper or the chattel slave, all were subjects of that King.   It was not a selective application of the treason law at all, but a general one. During the Revolution there was a case in which an enslaved man Billy was accused of high treason and found guilty by a similar oyer and teminer proceeding, but an appeal from Mann Page and others for acquittal was presented on the grounds that a slave did not -- and could not be expected to -- owe allegiance to Virginia.   The terms of allegiance had changed.

Billy was released to his owner so I think this case doesn't resolve the question of "chattels as Americans" but it reinforces the point that Parent makes in Foul Means -- that the system of slavery did not simply evolve but was a deliberate creation, a deliberate denial of rights to one group of people by another.

David Kiracofe





David KIRACOFE
History
Tidewater Community College
Chesapeake Campus
1428 Cedar Road
CHESAPEAKE, Virginia 23322
757-822-5136

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