The House orders mourning for George WashingtonUnited States House of Representatives · December 19, 1799
Annals of Congress · House debate, 2–3 January 1800United States House of Representatives; reported debate compiled by Gales and Seaton · 2–3 January 1800
Petition of Absalom Jones and seventy other free Black PhiladelphiansAbsalom Jones and seventy other signers · 30 December 1799
First AmendmentUnited States Congress; ratifying states · December 15, 1791
II · Kept 1762–1776
Absalom Jones's autobiographical sketchAbsalom Jones · circa 1787
A Narrative of the Late MassacresBenjamin Franklin · [30 January? 1764]
Mary's freedom and the status of childrenWGBH, Africans in America, interpreting the St. Peter's register and Pennsylvania law · 1770
The Declaration is read in the State House yardChristopher Marshall; National Park Service historical chronology · July 8, 1776
Declaration of Independence: equality and rightsContinental Congress · July 4, 1776
III · Nothing But Force 1778–1787
Grace Growden Galloway: eviction and liberty in a borrowed roomGrace Growden Galloway; edited by Raymond C. Werner · 20 August and 25 November 1778
Thoughts upon Female EducationBenjamin Rush · July 28, 1787
Treaty with the Delawares: Article VIDelaware Nation and United States commissioners Andrew and Thomas Lewis · September 17, 1778
Harrison Gray Otis on receiving the Black Philadelphians' petitionHarrison Gray Otis, as reported in the Annals of Congress · January 2, 1800
IV · The Same Picture 1781–1804
The later Yorktown story: a tune called The World Turned Upside DownAlexander Garden · 1828, recalling 1781
The Moravian Lenape: forced removal and return for foodNational Park Service, Cuyahoga Valley National Park · 1781–1782
Heckewelder's retrospective account of GnadenhüttenJohn Heckewelder · March 8, 1782
The Moravian Indian congregation in Philadelphia's barracksBernhard Adam Grube and Johann Jacob Schmick; Moravian Archives, Bethlehem · Winter 1764
Conestoga and Gnadenhütten: a continuity of impunityJack Brubaker, Digital Paxton; U.S. Army Center of Military History · 1763 and 1782
United Indian Nations to the Congress of the United StatesThe United Indian Nations, confederate council near the Detroit River · December 18, 1786
Northwest Ordinance: Native land and slaveryUnited States in Congress assembled · July 13, 1787
Treaty of Greenville, Articles III–V and subscriptionsUnited States and the Native treaty parties · August 3, 1795
Pennsylvania's Act for the Gradual Abolition of SlaveryPennsylvania General Assembly · March 1, 1780
Instructions to the jury in Commonwealth v. JennisonWilliam Cushing · April 1783
V · The Few and the Many 1775–1799
Preamble and Articles of Association of the Free African SocietyMembers of the Free African Society, including Absalom Jones and Richard Allen · 1787
Richard Allen remembers the departure from St. George'sRichard Allen · Later recollection · published 1833
The Key of LibbertyWilliam Manning · 1798 manuscript
Sedition Act: targets, elements, defenses and expirationFifth Congress; approved by John Adams · July 14, 1798
John Fries and resistance to the federal Direct TaxFederal Judicial Center; historical synthesis of federal court records · 1798–1800
VI · Their Own Church 1794–1799
The African Church records its opening and recommends Jones for ordersTrustees and representatives of St. Thomas's congregation; preserved by William Douglass · 17 July 1794 · church opening
Federal enforcement of claims to escaped laborUnited States Congress · February 12, 1793
VII · The One 2–3 January 1800
Thatcher’s arguments in the Philadelphia Gazette reportPhiladelphia Gazette report of George Thatcher’s speeches · 2–3 January 1800
The emancipation censure and the separate referralU.S. House of Representatives · January 3, 1800
Representation, importation and return in the original ConstitutionConstitutional Convention · September 17, 1787
A compressed performance of the recorded divisionOur adaptation of the House record · January 3, 1800
VIII · Upside Down? 1800–1801
Adams orders the individual pardons of Fries, Hainey and GettmanJohn Adams · May 21, 1800
Verdict: evidence and limits of change, 1754–1800Our modern synthesis of the cited primary records · 1754–1800
Background
Congress's reply to White EyesContinental Congress · April 10, 1776
George Morgan White Eyes to George WashingtonGeorge Morgan White Eyes · June 2, 1789
Smith threatens eviction: adapted from Grace Galloway’s diaryGrace Growden Galloway, reporting Smith; performance adapted · 20 August and 25 November 1778
Manning asks for another reading of his manuscriptWilliam Manning · 1799 letter recalling the April 1798 submission
John Brown on the petition of free Black PhiladelphiansAnnals of Congress, reporting John Brown of Rhode Island · 2 January 1800 · reported debate
A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Yellow FeverAbsalom Jones and Richard Allen · Published 1794
A Short Account of the Malignant Fever — the nurses paragraphMathew Carey · 1793 · second edition
Evidence of Gabriel’s planned uprisingWitness testimony in Commonwealth v. Gabriel; modern summary · October 6, 1800
I · One
2–3 January 1800
Resolutions
The House orders mourning for George Washington
United States House of Representatives · December 19, 1799
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: I · One
That the Speaker's chair be shrouded with black, and that the members and officers of the House wear mourning, during the session.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Washington's death reached the federal capital while Congress was meeting in Philadelphia.
Intended audience
Members and officers of the House, and the nation watching its observances.
Purpose
Make the House's mourning visible through its chair and members' dress.
Point of view
An institutional act of commemoration. It documents the black-shrouded chair and mourning dress; it does not prove exact coat colours, seat assignments, a clock on the wall, particular weather or spectators' identities. The painting uses the restored room's layout as a reconstruction.
Annals of Congress, 6th Congress, 1st session, House, 19 December 1799, pp. 203–205, resolution 2. Room plan and furnishings follow NPS restoration evidence.
Annals of Congress · House debate, 2–3 January 1800
United States House of Representatives; reported debate compiled by Gales and Seaton · 2–3 January 1800
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: I · One; II · Kept; VII · The One
They now tell the House these people are in slavery—I thank God they are! … Already had too much of this new-fangled French philosophy of liberty and equality found its way and was too apparent among these gentlemen in the Southern States, by which nothing would do but their liberty.
And that the parts of the said petition which invite Congress to legislate upon subjects from which the General Government is precluded by the Constitution, have a tendency to create disquiet and jealousy, and ought therefore to receive no encouragement or countenance from this House.
The question was taken, that the House do agree to the same, and resolved in the affirmative—yeas 85, nay 1.
Performance excerpts from Rutledge, Otis, Thatcher and Brown. The Annals reports Thatcher’s warning as “it was a cancer of immense magnitude, that would some time destroy the body politic, except a proper legislation should prevent the evil.” The performance changes “it was” to “It is” and stops before the final qualification. “It” refers to slavery. Brown’s “two such worthy members… both good Federalists” is followed in the report by “[A laugh.]” The laughter is recorded; its participants and sound are reconstructed. The printed debate is not a verbatim audio transcript, and we compress two days into an exchange.
Rutledge, reported text (p. 231): They say they are not represented. To be sure a great number of them are not.
Brown, first-person performance adapted from p. 233: I am sorry to see it backed by two such worthy members… both good Federalists. … I do not hold a slave in the world. But I consider them as much property as a farm or a ship.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Congress considered a petition signed by Jones and seventy other free Black Philadelphians. The first exchange was on 2 January; the recorded 85–1 vote was on 3 January 1800.
Intended audience
The House and readers of the congressional record; modern performances make reported remarks audible.
Purpose
Record the debate, the rebuke amendment and referral. The emancipation rebuke must not be conflated with the separate referral of the slave-trade and fugitive-law requests.
Point of view
The Annals are a later compilation of reported debate, not a stenographic transcript. George Thatcher alone voted nay. The Annals name Samuel Goode as amendment mover; a newspaper-based later headnote names Edwin Gray.
Annals of Congress, 6th Congress, 1st session (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1851), House of Representatives, 2 January 1800, pp. 230–231; 3 January 1800, pp. 244–245. Stage directions are editorial. New excerpts: Rutledge p. 231; John Brown of Rhode Island p. 233. First-person performances remain adapted.
Men sufficiently callous as to qualify, for the brutal purpose, are employed in kidnapping those of our Brethren that are free, and purchasing others of such as claim a property in them. … upon the waters of Maryland and Delaware … they are transported to Georgia and other places and there inhumanely, exposed to sale … The Law not long since enacted by Congress called the Fugitive Bill, is, in its execution found to be attended with circumstances peculiarly hard and distressing. … we may be admitted to partake of the Liberties and unalienable Rights therein held forth … We do not ask for the immediate emancipation of all … yet humbly desire you may exert every means in your power to undo the heavy burdens, and prepare the way for the oppressed to go free, that every yoke may be broken.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Free Black men in Philadelphia petitioned Congress about kidnapping, the slave trade, the operation of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act and a path toward emancipation. Robert Waln introduced the petition on 2 January 1800.
Intended audience
The President, Senate and House of Representatives of the United States.
Purpose
Seek protection for free people, relief from oppressive laws and preparation for emancipation through constitutional action.
Point of view
A collective intervention by free Black petitioners, many with direct experience of slavery. Jones is a lead petitioner, not its proven sole author. We give him the petition's words in a reconstructed reading; no claim that the original signing occurred in the painted room or at night.
Petition of Absalom Jones and others, 30 December 1799, HR 6A-F4.2, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, Record Group 233, National Archives. Excerpts retain ellipses between noncontiguous passages.
United States Congress; ratifying states · December 15, 1791
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: I · One
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Ratification of the first ten amendments followed the constitutional ratification debate.
Intended audience
The people, governments, and courts of the United States.
Purpose
Protect specified liberties against congressional interference.
Point of view
The text states a constitutional protection. In p3-10 it marks the right the 1799 petitioners used; it does not show how the House chose to answer a petition.
National Archives, The Bill of Rights: A Transcription, Amendment I. December 15, 1791, is the ratification date; submitted September 25, 1789.
Autobiographical manuscript printed in a church history
Absalom Jones's autobiographical sketch
Absalom Jones · circa 1787
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: II · Kept; III · Nothing But Force; IV · The Same Picture
I soon bought myself a primer, and begged to be taught by any body that I found able and willing to give me the least instruction.
In the year 1762, my mother, five brothers and a sister were sold, and I was brought to the city of Philadelphia with my master.
In the year 1770, I married a wife, who was a slave. I soon after proposed to purchase her freedom. To this her mistress agreed, for the sum of forty pounds. … From some we borrowed, and from others we received donations. In this way we soon raised thirty pounds of the money, her mistress, Sarah King, forgiving the balance of ten pounds.
However, I took a house, and for seven years, made it my business to work until twelve or one o'clock at night, to assist my wife in obtaining a livelihood, and to pay the money that was borrowed to purchase her freedom.
on the first of October, 1784, he generously gave me a manumission.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Jones looks back on enslavement, family separation, reading, marriage, Mary's freedom and his own eventual manumission.
Intended audience
Readers of his personal account and, through Douglass's later printing, the African Church's history.
Purpose
Record his life and the work of establishing a free household.
Point of view
First-person recollection transmitted through an 1862 printed edition. He was kept by his enslaver in 1762 while his mother and siblings were sold; he was not sold away from them. His reading began before the move to Philadelphia. The sketch supplies the purchase sequence and work hours, not a statement that his motive was to secure future children's freedom. Forty pounds was agreed, thirty raised and ten forgiven.
Absalom Jones, autobiographical narrative, circa 1787, in William Douglass, Annals of the First African Church in the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1862), pp. 119–121; transcription and manuscript provenance supplied by the Gilder Lehrman Institute.
In Europe, if the French, who are White-People, should injure the Dutch, are they to revenge it on the English, because they too are White People? The only Crime of these poor Wretches seems to have been, that they had a reddish brown Skin, and black Hair; and some People of that Sort, it seems, had murdered some of our Relations.
Sourcing
Historical situation
After the Paxton attacks on the Conestoga in December 1763, Franklin condemned collective punishment in a pamphlet published before the threatened march on Philadelphia.
Intended audience
Pennsylvania readers and British readers of subsequent reprints.
Purpose
Denounce the killings, distinguish peaceful communities from wartime enemies and defend the rule of law.
Point of view
A politically engaged colonial author condemning racial murder through contemporary language, including 'poor Wretches'. His words concern the Conestoga victims; we don't attribute those deaths to the Moravian barracks community. The pictured read-aloud action is reconstructed.
Benjamin Franklin, A Narrative of the Late Massacres, [30 January? 1764], The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 11, ed. Leonard W. Labaree (Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 42–69, Founders Online. Excerpt ends at the original semicolon after 'Hair'; words and capitalization retained.
WGBH, Africans in America, interpreting the St. Peter's register and Pennsylvania law · 1770
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: II · Kept
The register records the marriage of Absalom and Mary on 4 January 1770. Under Pennsylvania's rule of maternal status, children born after Mary's freedom would be freeborn. This legal consequence does not establish Jones's unrecorded personal motives.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Jones and Mary married while both were enslaved. His autobiographical sketch says he sought her freedom before his own.
Intended audience
Modern readers examining the marriage register and the couple's legal position.
Purpose
Explain why the mother's legal status mattered to the status of children.
Point of view
Modern interpretation, not Jones speaking. The commentary also notes compulsory binding-out of freeborn Black children under Pennsylvania's 1725 law: freeborn did not mean equal rights or exemption from coerced service. Its claim that Jones later purchased his own freedom conflicts with his sketch and is excluded; the sketch says manumission was granted on 1 October 1784. Its inference about motive is also excluded.
WGBH/PBS, Africans in America, 'Absalom Jones's marriage to Mary', reproducing the St. Peter's Anglican Church register, 4 January 1770, with commentary on maternal status. Used only for the marriage record and legal consequence; Jones's own sketch controls his manumission and the purchase sequence.
Contemporary diary, checked against NPS chronology
The Declaration is read in the State House yard
Christopher Marshall; National Park Service historical chronology · July 8, 1776
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: II · Kept
John Nixon read the Declaration of Independence to a crowd in the State House yard on 8 July 1776. Jones remained enslaved until 1784. Nothing used here establishes that he attended or heard this reading.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Four days after Congress adopted the Declaration, Philadelphia heard a public reading outside the State House.
Intended audience
Marshall's diary was a private record; the reading addressed the assembled public.
Purpose
Document the public proclamation of independence and its reception.
Point of view
The event is documented, while the painted crowd and individual reactions are reconstructed. Jones's continuing enslavement is independently established by his sketch. The juxtaposition makes no eyewitness claim about him.
Christopher Marshall, diary, 8 July 1776, transcription at Naval Documents of the American Revolution, https://www.navydocs.org/node/5930; National Park Service, 'Declaration of Independence Timeline', entry for 8 July 1776. Jones's status: Douglass, Annals of the First African Church, pp. 119–121.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Congress adopted the Declaration on 4 July 1776; John Nixon publicly read it in the State House yard on 8 July.
Intended audience
Colonists, Britain and the wider world; the staged reading addresses Philadelphia’s assembled public.
Purpose
Justify independence through natural rights and a list of grievances.
Point of view
Congress proclaimed equality while slavery and unequal political participation continued. The words are verbatim; the actor’s voice, crowd and individual gestures are reconstructed. No evidence establishes Jones attended this reading.
Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776, National Archives transcription. Public reading context separately documented in declaration-yard-1776.
I told them Nothing but force shou’d get me out of My house… pray take Notice I do not leave my house of My own accord or with my own inclination but by force & Nothing but force should have Made Me give up possession… ye Liberty of doing as I please Makes even poverty more agreeable than any time I ever spent since I married
Smith said they knew how to Manage that & that they wou’d throw my cloaths in ye street.
Sourcing
Historical situation
After the British evacuation of Philadelphia and Joseph Galloway's departure, Pennsylvania confiscation agents expelled Grace on 20 August 1778. Peale took her arm. Her husband's estate was confiscated; her inherited property was sequestrated for his lifetime under the marital property regime. The liberty reflection appears under Wednesday the 25th, within the November 1778 sequence, pp. 59–60.
Intended audience
Her private record and family, especially her absent daughter Betsy and husband Joseph.
Purpose
To preserve her protest against dispossession and describe both her distress and unexpected personal freedom in her husband's absence.
Point of view
A wealthy Loyalist woman defending her status and property, sometimes contemptuous of the artisans enforcing confiscation. Her diary supplies remembered speech, not a neutral transcript. We perform her account and label it as such.
Raymond C. Werner, ed., Diary of Grace Growden Galloway, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 55, no. 1 (1931), pp. 32–94: marriage in 1753 at p. 32; sequestration at p. 34; eviction at pp. 51–52; liberty reflection at pp. 59–60 (25 November, following the November 1778 heading at p. 56). The introduction's 1789 death date is erroneous and is not used. The scan leaves the chariot's general unidentified; no Arnold attribution is made.
to concur in instructing their sons in the principles of liberty and government.
SELECTED PARAGRAPH: The equal share that every citizen has in the liberty and the possible share he may have in the government of our country make it necessary that our ladies should be qualified to a certain degree, by a peculiar and suitable education, to concur in instructing their sons in the principles of liberty and government.
This is the ExplorePAHistory transcription. 'Republican motherhood' is a later historians' term, not Rush's phrase. Omitting 'to concur in' changes the quotation.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Education debates in the new republic.
Intended audience
Academy trustees, students, and families.
Purpose
Justify female education through women's civic and domestic responsibilities.
Point of view
A male reformer expanding schooling while defining its usefulness through sons and households.
Benjamin Rush, Thoughts upon Female Education, address to the Young Ladies' Academy, 28 July 1787; ExplorePAHistory primary-document transcription (document 1-4-242).
And it is further agreed on between the contracting parties should it for the future be found conducive for the mutual interest of both parties to invite any other tribes who have been friends to the interest of the United States, to join the present confederation, and to form a state whereof the Delaware nation shall be the head, and have a representation in Congress: Provided, nothing contained in this article to be considered as conclusive until it meets with the approbation of Congress. And it is also the intent and meaning of this article, that no protection or countenance shall be afforded to any who are at present our enemies, by which they might escape the punishment they deserve.
Sourcing
Historical situation
At Fort Pitt the United States sought passage, supplies and alliance during its war with Britain. White Eyes, The Pipe and John Kill Buck signed by mark for the Delaware Nation. Article VI contemplated a Delaware-led state if the parties found an expanded confederation mutually useful, expressly subject to congressional approval.
Intended audience
The contracting nations, their leaders and Congress, whose approval the article reserved.
Purpose
To establish alliance and address Delaware fears for their land and political future while specifying obligations and conditions.
Point of view
A negotiated treaty recorded in English. The statehood provision was conditional, not an unconditional promise that a state or congressional seat already existed. The proposed Delaware-led state did not materialize. We stage Andrew Lewis reading actual text; the reading scene is reconstructed.
Treaty with the Delawares, 17 September 1778, Article VI, 7 Stat. 13; Charles J. Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. II (Washington, 1904), pp. 3–5, Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database. The excerpt is the statehood clause and its approval proviso, not the entirety of Article VI.
Harrison Gray Otis on receiving the Black Philadelphians' petition
Harrison Gray Otis, as reported in the Annals of Congress · January 2, 1800
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: III · Nothing But Force
It would teach them the art of assembling together, debating, and the like, and would soon, if encouraged, extend from one end of the Union to the other.
Sourcing
Historical situation
The House considered the petition presented by Robert Waln from 71 free Black Philadelphians. Otis objected to encouraging political organization. On 3 January, the 85–1 rebuke targeted the emancipation language; the slave-trade and fugitive-law portions went to committee.
Intended audience
House members and the public reached by printed reports of their proceedings.
Purpose
To resist encouraging this petition and the wider political mobilization of Black Americans.
Point of view
A Massachusetts Federalist member arguing against the petition. The Annals are a compiled report, not a stenographic transcript. This extract retains the report's words but is adapted into an on-camera performance and visibly labelled accordingly.
Annals of Congress, 6th Congress, 1st session, House of Representatives, 2 January 1800, p. 231 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1851).
The later Yorktown story: a tune called The World Turned Upside Down
Alexander Garden · 1828, recalling 1781
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · The Same Picture
The British army marched out with colours cased, and drums beating a British or a German march. The march they chose was — ‘The world turned up side down.’
Sourcing
Historical situation
Garden printed this anecdote in his second series forty-seven years after the Yorktown surrender.
Intended audience
Readers commemorating the Revolutionary generation.
Purpose
Tell memorable stories of Revolutionary officers and events.
Point of view
A late anecdotal claim, not an eyewitness report identifying the tune at the surrender. The title card calls it a later legend; the original score is an artistic motif.
Alexander Garden, Anecdotes of the American Revolution … Second Series (Charleston: A. E. Miller, 1828), p. 18, anecdote on Col. John Laurens.
The Moravian Lenape: forced removal and return for food
National Park Service, Cuyahoga Valley National Park · 1781–1782
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: IV · The Same Picture
In 1781, a British-allied war party forced the Moravian Christian Lenape from their Tuscarawas towns to the Sandusky. After a winter of hunger, some returned to Gnadenhütten to gather the crops they had left behind. These were the people seized by Pennsylvania militia in March 1782.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Neutral Christian Lenape communities were distrusted by competing sides in the Revolutionary War. The removal preceded their return for corn and the Gnadenhütten killings.
Intended audience
Visitors and readers studying the Moravian Lenape's movements through the Ohio Country.
Purpose
To establish the sequence and acknowledge both the British-allied expulsion and the Pennsylvania militia's subsequent responsibility.
Point of view
A modern National Park Service synthesis, not a participant's quotation. We don't turn intermittent British protection into an unconditional guarantee and don't identify the victims as the same individuals sheltered in Philadelphia in 1764.
National Park Service, Timeline of the Moravian Lenape at Pilgerruh, sections First Settlements Created and Abandoned (1772–1781) and The Gnadenhutten Massacre and its Aftermath (1782–1786). The NPS dates the return to March; the earlier account places the party's departure in February. The narration says only that they returned before the March killings.
Heckewelder's retrospective account of Gnadenhütten
John Heckewelder · March 8, 1782
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · The Same Picture
Of the above number, sixty two were grown persons, one third of whom were women; the remaining thirty four were children.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Pennsylvania militia led by David Williamson killed Christian Lenape at Gnadenhütten after their return to gather corn. Heckewelder wrote decades afterward, drawing on reports of the prisoners' last night and the killings.
Intended audience
Readers of the Moravian mission’s history.
Purpose
To record the destruction of the congregation and commemorate the dead through a Christian account of martyrdom.
Point of view
A missionary with deep ties to the communities, but not an eyewitness to the killings. His 1820 account says the total exceeded ninety and then lists sixty-two adults and thirty-four children; Rondthaler’s 1847 account explicitly gives ninety-six. No hymn words, specific song or militia vote is reconstructed.
John Heckewelder, A Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians (Philadelphia: M’Carty & Davis, 1820), pp. 319–321, especially the count on p. 321. The 96 total is corroborated in Edward Rondthaler, A Life of John Heckewelder (Philadelphia, 1847), p. 96. Later retrospective accounts, not eyewitness testimony to the killings.
The Moravian Indian congregation in Philadelphia's barracks
Bernhard Adam Grube and Johann Jacob Schmick; Moravian Archives, Bethlehem · Winter 1764
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: IV · The Same Picture
Moravian Lenape and Mahican families were held in Philadelphia under colonial protection during the Paxton crisis. British soldiers guarded the barracks. This is a reconstruction of that refuge, not a claim that identified residents later died at Gnadenhütten.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Native Moravian congregants were removed from their communities and detained around Philadelphia during the crisis of 1763–1765. The barracks became a guarded refuge from threatened attack.
Intended audience
Mission administrators and fellow congregations; modern readers of the archived diaries.
Purpose
Record the congregation's movements, daily conditions and worship. We use a sourced summary rather than inventing a translated diary quotation.
Point of view
Missionary records mediate Native experience. The archive's finding aid confirms the diary series. Shelter did not mean freedom from confinement, illness or colonial control. No named-person continuity with the 1782 victims is established, and British-allied forces later expelled the Tuscarawas congregation in 1781.
Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, MissInd 127.1–127.4, Grube and Schmick diaries, December 1763–April 1765; especially 127.2, 24 January–31 December 1764. Digital Paxton, 'Moravian Indian Diaries (1763–65)'. Excerpt is editorial summary, not a quotation from an inspected German diary page.
The Paxton attackers escaped punishment for killing the Conestoga in 1763. No one was punished for the Gnadenhütten massacre of 1782. The comparison concerns failures to punish violence against Native people; it does not establish that the same people appear in the 1764 barracks and at Gnadenhütten.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Two separate attacks occurred under different political regimes. British troops sheltered Moravian refugees in Philadelphia in 1764 after the Paxton attacks on the Conestoga; Pennsylvania militia later killed members of the Moravian communities at Gnadenhütten.
Intended audience
Students comparing the reach and limits of political change during the Revolution.
Purpose
To identify the specific continuing pattern supported by the evidence: perpetrators escaped formal punishment.
Point of view
An editorial comparison of historical research, not a primary-source quotation. The communities and perpetrators are not treated as interchangeable, and the 1781 British-allied expulsion is acknowledged separately.
Jack Brubaker, The Aftermath of the Conestoga Massacre, Digital Paxton, https://digitalpaxton.org/works/digital-paxton/the-aftermath-of-the-conestoga-massacre; U.S. Army Center of Military History, Securing Victory, 1781–1783, p. 30, discussion of Irvine and Pentecost's investigation and the absence of punishment for Gnadenhütten.
we the Indians, were disappointed finding ourselves not included in that peace according to our expectations… any cession of our lands should be made in the most public manner & by the united voice of the confederacy.
Sourcing
Historical situation
After the 1783 Anglo-American peace, Native nations disputed American assumptions that Britain could dispose of their lands and sought negotiations through a united confederacy.
Intended audience
The Congress of the United States.
Purpose
To seek peace on terms recognizing collective Native consent and to reject partial land cessions made without the confederacy's united voice.
Point of view
A collective diplomatic statement by confederated Native nations, not the personal words of an identified actor. An unnamed representative voices the text on screen; no unsupported attribution to Joseph Brant is made.
United Indian Nations to Congress, confederate council near the mouth of the Detroit River, 18 December 1786, National Archives, RG 360, Papers of the Continental Congress; transcription in The American Yawp Reader, A Confederation of Native peoples seek peace with the United States, 1786. The two quoted fragments are separated in the address and are performed as separate lines.
Article III. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.
Article VI. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.
Sourcing
Historical situation
The Confederation Congress established a government and eventual statehood process for the territory northwest of the Ohio River in July 1787, while Native nations contested U.S. claims to their land.
Intended audience
Territorial officials, settlers, prospective states, the existing states and Native nations whose land and rights the ordinance addressed.
Purpose
Organize territorial government, define compact articles and restrictions, promise protection for Native land, and prohibit slavery subject to the criminal-punishment exception and fugitive-return proviso.
Point of view
Congress asserted jurisdiction over a region inhabited by Native nations that had not consented to all U.S. territorial claims. A written promise is evidence of official policy, not proof that good faith or the ban was consistently enforced. Article VI explicitly preserved the reclamation of fugitives.
Northwest Ordinance, 13 July 1787, Articles III and VI, Avalon Project, Yale Law School, 1787 text. Read directly 4 October 2026; excerpt ellipsis joins two articles. Article labels supplied in full text.
Treaty of Greenville, Articles III–V and subscriptions
United States and the Native treaty parties · August 3, 1795
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · The Same Picture
And for the same considerations and with the same views as above mentioned, the United States now deliver to the said Indian tribes a quantity of goods to the value of twenty thousand dollars, the receipt whereof they do hereby acknowledge; and henceforward every year, forever, the United States will deliver, at some convenient place northward of the river Ohio, like useful goods, suited to the circumstances of the Indians, of the value of nine thousand five hundred dollars; reckoning that value at the first cost of the goods in the city or place in the United States where they shall be procured.
Sourcing
Historical situation
The August 1795 settlement followed the Native coalition's defeat at Fallen Timbers and negotiations over disputed prior cessions.
Intended audience
The governments and communities of the signatory parties and officials charged with applying the agreement.
Purpose
End hostilities, define cessions and remaining rights, and establish goods deliveries and continuing relations.
Point of view
A negotiated legal text under unequal military circumstances. Its promises describe obligations, not proof of later compliance. Its twelve-party count includes the Eel River people separately.
Treaty with the Wyandot, etc., August 3, 1795, 7 Stat. 49; Charles J. Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. II (1904), pp. 39–45, via Avalon. Article III: boundary and sixteen additional tracts; Article IV: retained claims/reservations and $20,000/$9,500 goods; Article V: retained Native land rights. Witness list identifies 'Wm. Wells' among sworn interpreters.
The act preserved slavery for people already enslaved who were registered under its terms. Children born afterward to enslaved mothers owed service until age twenty-eight. Registration and other restrictions could free people held contrary to the act; it did not immediately emancipate the existing registered enslaved population.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Revolutionary Pennsylvania enacted gradual abolition in 1780. Absalom Jones remained enslaved until his master's manumission in 1784.
Intended audience
Pennsylvania residents, enslavers, officials and the people whose status the statute governed.
Purpose
To begin ending hereditary lifetime slavery while preserving existing registered owners' claims and requiring extended service from children born after passage.
Point of view
A legislature's compromise between antislavery principles and the claims of enslavers. We distinguish legal change from immediate personal freedom and don't claim that every provision of the act left every person enslaved.
An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Pennsylvania, 1 March 1780, especially sections III–V and X; Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Our Documentary Heritage, Record Group 26, Department of State, Engrossed Laws. This source excerpt is a labelled paraphrase, not statutory quotation.
Instructions to the jury in Commonwealth v. Jennison
William Cushing · April 1783
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · The Same Picture
SELECTED EXCERPT, not the complete document.
there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract.
ADDITIONAL SELECTED PASSAGES: with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses—features) has inspired all the human race.
I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution;
These extracts come from notes of the charge, not a stenographic recording. The 'effectually abolished' wording belongs to a different revision of Cushing's minutes; do not splice it into this version.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Criminal prosecution for Jennison's assault on Quock Walker after related freedom litigation.
Intended audience
The trial jury.
Purpose
Explain why enslavement did not justify the assault under the state constitution.
Point of view
A chief justice interpreting constitutional liberty while recognizing criminal and contractual exceptions.
William Cushing, notes of jury instructions, Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison (1783), National Constitution Center Historic Document Library transcription.
Preamble and Articles of Association of the Free African Society
Members of the Free African Society, including Absalom Jones and Richard Allen · 1787
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: V · The Few and the Many
a society should be formed, without regard to religious tenets, provided, the persons lived an orderly and sober life, in order to support one another in sickness, and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless children.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Free Black Philadelphians organized mutual aid in 1787, the same year that delegates met in Philadelphia to draft the federal Constitution.
Intended audience
Members and prospective members of the Society, and people assisting its work.
Purpose
Set shared obligations for subscriptions, relief, care for widows and children, and membership.
Point of view
A Black-led institution articulating collective responsibility and respectability. Its rules describe intended practice.
Preamble and Articles of Association, 1787, in William Douglass, Annals of the First African Church (Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1862), pp. 14–18; National Park Service transcription. The preamble's printed 1778 date is corrected to 1787 by the NPS note.
Richard Allen remembers the departure from St. George's
Richard Allen · Later recollection · published 1833
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: V · The Few and the Many
A number of us usually attended St. George’s Church in Fourth street; and when the coloured people began to get numerous in attending the church, they moved us from the seats we usually sat on and placed us around the wall, and on Sabbath morning we went to church and the sexton stood at the door, and told us to go in the gallery. He told us to go, and we would see where to sit. We expected to take the seats over the ones we formerly occupied below, not knowing any better. We took those seats. Meeting had begun and they were nearly done singing, and just as we got to the seats, the elder said, “let us pray.” We had not been long upon our knees before I heard considerable scuffling and low talking. I raised my head up and saw one of the trustees, H— M—, having hold of the Rev. Absalom Jones, pulling him up off of his knees and saying, “You must get up — you must not kneel here.” Mr. Jones replied, “wait until prayer is over.” Mr. H— M— said “no, you must get up now, or I will call for aid and I force you away.” Mr. Jones said, “wait until prayer is over, and I will get up and trouble you no more.” With that he beckoned to one of the other trustees, Mr. L— S— to come to his assistance. He came, and went to William White to pull him up. By this time prayer was over, and we all went out of the church in a body, and they were no more plagued with us in the church.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Allen recalled racial segregation and the removal of Black worshippers from their places at St. George's Methodist church. The autobiography was published in 1833, after his death; the walkout's year is disputed.
Intended audience
Readers of Allen's life and the Black religious community whose institutional history he recounted.
Purpose
Explain the experiences and decisions behind independent Black religious organization.
Point of view
A participant and church founder looking back decades later. The recollection supports his account of discrimination and departure, but should not be used to supply an uncontested event year or an exact contemporary dialogue transcript. Dialogue is verbatim within this later recollection; its occurrence word for word at the original event is not established.
Richard Allen, The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen (Philadelphia: Martin & Boden, 1833), St. George's passage, pp. 14–15; National Humanities Center, The Origins of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, transcription excerpt. Original edition hosted at https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/allen/allen.html was unavailable in this pass. NHC states that some spelling/punctuation is modernized; the unusual “and I force you away” is retained, not silently repaired. Sentence-initial capitalization and dash spacing normalized for performance.
I See almost the first blood that was shed in Concord fite & scores of men dead, dying & wounded in the Cause of Libberty, which caused serious sencations in my mind. … The Reasons why a free government has always failed is from the unreasonable demands & desires of the few. They cant bare to be on a leavel with their fellow cretures … The gratest & best meens of obtaining the knowledge nesecary for a free man to have, is by the Liberty of the Press, or publick Newspapers.
The Key of Libberty… By a Labourer. … I See almost the first blood that was shed in Concord fite & scores of men dead, dying & wounded in the Cause of Libberty. … The Reasons why a free government has always failed is from the unreasonable demands & desires of the few.
Sourcing
Historical situation
A Billerica farmer and tavern keeper, who had marched in April 1775, wrote a critique of elite power in the new republic during the partisan struggles of the 1790s.
Intended audience
Republicans, farmers, mechanics and laborers whom Manning hoped to reach in print.
Purpose
Explain how the few dominate the many and propose organization and wider access to political knowledge.
Point of view
A self-educated laboring writer and Revolutionary participant. The Concord sentence is retrospective and says 'almost'; it does not establish that he witnessed the first shot or the bridge exchange. Original spelling is preserved, with display capitalization and line-break hyphenation normalized.
William Manning, The Key of Libberty, finished 20 February 1798, first printed by the Manning Association (Billerica, 1922), foreword by Samuel Eliot Morison; title, introduction and sections on the causes of republican failure and knowledge. Cornell copy, Internet Archive cu31924014353837. The 1922 volume, not the 1956 William and Mary Quarterly reprint, is the first printing.
false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings / the government of the United States / either house of the Congress of the United States / the President of the United States
Sourcing
Historical situation
Congress enacted the law during the undeclared conflict with France and intense party rivalry.
Intended audience
Printers, authors, citizens and noncitizens, prosecutors, judges and juries.
Purpose
Punish specified combinations and certain writings against federal institutions or the president.
Point of view
Selected §2 phrases, separated by slashes, not the entire rule. Section 2 covers writing, printing, uttering or publishing such writings, and knowing assistance, with enumerated intent. The vice president is not a named target. Section 1 separately covers unlawful combinations against federal measures or officers. Section 3 permits truth as a defense and law-and-fact jury judgment under judicial direction. Section 2 penalties are maxima: $2,000 and two years. Section 4 ends the law March 3, 1801 but saves prosecution and punishment of prior offenses.
An Act in addition to the act, entitled An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, July 14, 1798, ch. 74, 1 Stat. 596–597, §§1–4. National Archives transcription.
In March 1799, armed opponents of the federal Direct Tax, led by auctioneer John Fries, compelled the release of prisoners at Bethlehem. Federal troops suppressed the resistance. Fries was tried for treason and ultimately sentenced to hang. This is a modern summary, not Fries's speech.
Sourcing
Historical situation
The federal government's 1798 direct levy on land, dwelling houses and enslaved people helped finance military preparations amid conflict with France. Houses were assessed by value, not a simple tax per window.
Intended audience
Modern readers studying early federal courts and the limits of treason law.
Purpose
Explain the resistance, prosecutions and disputes over what counted as levying war against the United States.
Point of view
An institutional retrospective based on legal records. We use narration, not invented words for Fries, and don't treat every tax protest as treason. The sentence is a later consequence, not an event at Bethlehem on 7 March.
Federal Judicial Center, 'Circuit Court Opinions: Associate Justice James Iredell, Case of Fries (1799),' discussing 9 F. Cas. 826 (C.C.D. Pa. 1799), No. 5,126; Thomas Carpenter, The Two Trials of John Fries (Philadelphia, 1800); Direct Tax legislation of 9 and 14 July 1798. Date and auctioneer identification: Paul Douglas Newman, 'Fries Rebellion,' Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.
on the 17th of July last, the house we prepared was opened and dedicated for divine worship
Sourcing
Historical situation
The congregation's 1794 address recounts opening its own house of worship and its subsequent reception into Episcopal fellowship, then recommends Jones as a candidate for holy orders.
Intended audience
Bishop William White and the clergy and wardens of Philadelphia's Episcopal churches.
Purpose
Record the congregation's institutional steps and secure recognition of its chosen leader.
Point of view
The congregation speaking on its own behalf, preserved in a later church history. Its recommendation of Jones for orders must not be turned into a claim that he was already an ordained priest at the July opening. Priesthood came in 1802; the painting shows civilian clothing and lay leadership.
William Douglass, Annals of the First African Church (Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1862), pp. 58–59 (opening on 17 July 1794 and title of Samuel Magaw's dedication discourse), pp. 100–103 (congregational address recommending Jones as a candidate for orders). Internet Archive annalsoffirstafr00doug. This is the original Philadelphia church, not today's building.
seize or arrest such fugitive from labour … which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from labour, to the state or territory from which he or she fled.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Congress implemented interstate rendition provisions after the Constitution took effect.
Intended audience
Claimants and their agents, federal judges, state magistrates, and people subject to seizure.
Purpose
Provide a federal process for capture and certification of removal. Sections 3–4 concern alleged fugitives from labor; the opening sections concern criminal fugitives.
Point of view
The statute gives procedural power to claimants. The 1799 petition supplies the separate testimony that free Black people suffered kidnapping and abuse under colour of the law; that testimony is not a statutory authorization to kidnap free people.
An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters, 12 February 1793, sections 3–4, 1 Stat. 302–305. Statutes at Large scan, government edition; distinguish original statute from later judicial footnotes.
Thatcher’s arguments in the Philadelphia Gazette report
Philadelphia Gazette report of George Thatcher’s speeches · 2–3 January 1800
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: VII · The One
Reported wording: “they stated their sufferings under a law of the United States, and that was argument enough for a respectful reference.” / “How was this to be ascertained but by enquiry?” / “It must come before the house sooner or later. Then why postpone it?” Performance changes stated to state and was to is; choice labels are modern teaching paraphrases.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Thatcher argued for referral and inquiry during the debate on the free Black Philadelphians’ petition.
Intended audience
House members and newspaper readers.
Purpose
Challenge refusal to investigate grievances and condemnation of the petition’s emancipation request.
Point of view
A reported speech in a newspaper, not a word-for-word audio record. Its attribution of the amendment to Gray differs from the Annals attribution to Goode.
Philadelphia Gazette, 16–17 January 1800, reprinted in The Insurgent Delegate: Selected Letters and Other Writings of George Thatcher, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, “Speech on Referring an Antislavery Petition, 2–3 January 1800.” Transcription consulted 4 October 2026.
And that the parts of the said petition which invite Congress to legislate upon subjects from which the General Government is precluded by the Constitution, have a tendency to create disquiet and jealousy, and ought therefore to receive no encouragement or countenance from this House.
Sourcing
Historical situation
The House voted 85–1 to add this amendment to the referral motion. George Thatcher cast the only recorded nay.
Intended audience
House members, petitioners and the public reading the proceedings.
Purpose
Rebuke the petition’s emancipation language on a claimed constitutional ground. The slave-trade and fugitive-law portions were nevertheless referred to the committee appointed on 12 December 1799.
Point of view
The majority’s constitutional interpretation, contested by Thatcher; not an uncontested statement that every federal antislavery measure was prohibited. The referral passed without a recorded division in the cited account.
Annals of Congress, 6th Congress, 1st session, 3 January 1800, pp. 244–245. Annals attribution: Samuel Goode; the Philadelphia Gazette version attributes the motion to Edwin Gray. The petition’s reverse records both referral and censure; its date line has a year slip, not a different 1799 vote. National Archives, HR 6A-F4.2, RG 233, NAID 7594794.
Article I, section 2: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
Article I, section 9: “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”
Article IV, section 2: “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.”
Sourcing
Historical situation
The Convention drafted a new federal framework amid bargaining among states with different interests in slavery.
Intended audience
Ratifying states, federal and state officials, and the people governed by the new system.
Purpose
Apportion representation and direct taxes, constrain federal prohibition of importation until 1808, and require interstate return of people held to service or labor.
Point of view
Negotiated constitutional protections for slaveholding within a republic. The three-fifths rule did not grant the enslaved a vote; the importation clause did not ban all foreign-trade regulation or emancipate anyone in 1808.
Original U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 2, clause 3; Article I, section 9, clause 1; Article IV, section 2, clause 3. National Archives transcription of the signed parchment, consulted 4 October 2026.
I pray you therefore to prepare, for my Signature this morning a Pardon for each of the Criminals John Fries, Frederick Hainey and John Gettman
Sourcing
Historical situation
After treason convictions arising from resistance to the federal Direct Tax, Adams overruled his advisers’ recommendation.
Intended audience
Attorney General Charles Lee.
Purpose
Order preparation of individual pardons for three men sentenced to death and a separate general pardon.
Point of view
A president personally accepting responsibility for clemency. This is distinct from Congress’s treatment of a petition; the comparison does not make the two cases legally identical.
John Adams to Charles Lee, Philadelphia, 21 May 1800, Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. Founders Online early-access transcription, reproduced by Rotunda; not yet a final edited text. The general proclamation is separate from the individual pardons.
Our modern synthesis of the cited primary records · 1754–1800
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: VIII · Upside Down?
Eight evidence cards distinguish an institutional change from a persistent pattern. Constitution and Bill of Rights: new federal framework, with colonial precedents for assemblies and petitioning. Free African Society and St. Thomas: Black mutual aid and religious independence, achieved by their members. Galloway: changed property and political standing for a Loyalist household, alongside continuing coverture. France: enemy, ally, then Quasi-War opponent. Slavery: continuing coercion under new constitutional and statutory protections. Coverture: persistent legal subordination despite changing civic expectations of women. Fort Pitt: a promised Delaware-led state not established; later Native protest against exclusion from the peace. Manning: a labourer’s argument against elite influence, with his manuscript returned unread for stated reasons of health and time.
A classification alone is not an explanation. Explain the mechanism: Black institutions gave people mutual aid and places of worship under their own leadership; the fugitive clause and 1793 law supplied tools for returning people to enslavement. Then qualify the extent of the claim. No single selected card proves that every person gained liberty or that no change occurred.
Sourcing
Historical situation
A modern AP U.S. History argument about continuity and change across Period 3.
Intended audience
Students weighing our evidence for a qualified thesis.
Purpose
Support two changes, two continuities, an explanatory link and a counterargument without converting human suffering into a score.
Point of view
A disclosed editorial interpretation, not a new primary source. Categories select one aspect of a complex event; each card’s feedback names limits or changes within a continuity.
Card republic: U.S. Constitution (1787), Articles I–VII, and Bill of Rights (1791), National Archives transcripts. Black institutions: William Douglass, Annals of the First African Church (1862), early institutional history. Galloway: diary, 20 August 1778, ed. Raymond C. Werner, PMHB 55 (1931), p. 51; fc-lives. France: Treaty of Alliance (1778), naval legislation (1798), Convention of 1800. U.S. Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/xyz. Slavery: Constitution I.2, I.9, IV.2. Fugitive Slave Act, 1 Stat. 302–305. Coverture: Blackstone, Commentaries, I.15 (1765). Abigail–John Adams correspondence (1776). CED KC-3.2.I.D. Native sovereignty: Fort Pitt Treaty, Article VI, 7 Stat. 13–15. United Indian Nations address (1786), project primary-sources §7/fc-lives. Manning: The Key of Libberty (1798), letter to Thomas Adams (c. February 1799), 1922 edition, project fc-lives. Counterargument: Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act (1780), sections 3–5, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/inde-pa-gradual-abolition-act-1780.htm.
These things we agree to do, brothers, at your request, and to convince you that we wish to advance your happiness, and that there may be a lasting union between us, and that, as you express it, we may become one people.
Sourcing
Historical situation
White Eyes was introduced to Congress on 16 December 1775 and stayed through the winter. Congress's April reply acknowledges his March speech and requests on behalf of the Delaware.
Intended audience
White Eyes and, through him, the Delaware and other Native nations.
Purpose
Promise assistance and affirm a continuing diplomatic relationship with Congress.
Point of view
Congress's English reply quotes its understanding of White Eyes's request; this is not a surviving transcript of his own speech. The surrounding promises of instruction and redress contain colonial paternalism as well as alliance. The record adopts the reply on 10 April and orders delivery for the following morning; the reader and setting are reconstructed.
Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, vol. 4, ed. Worthington C. Ford, entry for 10 April 1776; edited transcription at The American Founding. Edition page image not re-collated in this writing pass.
Circumstances relative to the Murder of a tender Parent & Friend to his Country induced Congress to condescend to take me as their own, & from the Age of seven Years have I been under their Protection, but this ’till now I never knew—I was placed at Princeton under the Care of Colonel Morgan & continued until last September—I never knew who maintained me & was taught to look upon myself as a poor Outcast, & depending for Food & Raiment &c. on the Goodness of that Gentleman.
Sourcing
Historical situation
White Eyes's son appeals to Washington after his education at Princeton under George Morgan's care. He calls his father's death a murder. The Founders Online editorial note's 1779 date is inconsistent with that report.
Intended audience
President George Washington.
Purpose
To seek relief and recognition of obligations incurred toward the son of a Delaware ally.
Point of view
The bereaved son describes his own painful circumstances and understanding of his father's death. The excerpt is not an eyewitness description of the killing and does not identify a specific killer or location.
George Morgan White Eyes to George Washington, 2 June 1789, The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 2, Founders Online, National Archives.
Smith threatens eviction: adapted from Grace Galloway’s diary
Grace Growden Galloway, reporting Smith; performance adapted · 20 August and 25 November 1778
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
Background: not shown on screen.
Smith said they knew how to Manage that & that they wou’d throw my cloaths in ye street.
Performance adaptation: We know how to manage that. We’ll throw your clothes in the street.
Sourcing
Historical situation
After the British evacuation of Philadelphia and Joseph Galloway's departure, Pennsylvania confiscation agents expelled Grace on 20 August 1778. Peale took her arm. Her husband's estate was confiscated; her inherited property was sequestrated for his lifetime under the marital property regime. The liberty reflection appears under Wednesday the 25th, within the November 1778 sequence, pp. 59–60.
Intended audience
Her private record and family, especially her absent daughter Betsy and husband Joseph.
Purpose
To preserve her protest against dispossession and describe both her distress and unexpected personal freedom in her husband's absence.
Point of view
Grace reports Smith in the third person. The performance changes person and tense and modernizes spelling; it is not a verbatim Smith transcript. Grace’s own diary lines remain linked to the separate verbatim source.
Raymond C. Werner, ed., Diary of Grace Growden Galloway, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 55, no. 1 (1931), pp. 32–94: marriage in 1753 at p. 32; sequestration at p. 34; eviction at pp. 51–52; liberty reflection at pp. 59–60 (25 November, following the November 1778 heading at p. 56). The introduction's 1789 death date is erroneous and is not used. The scan leaves the chariot's general unidentified; no Arnold attribution is made.
Manning asks for another reading of his manuscript
William Manning · 1799 letter recalling the April 1798 submission
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
As this peace was laid before you last April for your opinnion upon it, & you then seemed to regret the want of helth & lasure to give it a perusal
Sourcing
Historical situation
After the first manuscript was returned unread, Manning prepared a shorter version and renewed his appeal to the Boston Independent Chronicle's editors.
Intended audience
An editor addressed as 'Mr. Addams' in the printed letter.
Purpose
Secure a serious reading, consultation with other Republicans, and eventual publication.
Point of view
An author reporting the editor's earlier explanation. We have Manning read his own account; we don't invent an editor's speaking voice. Morison's foreword associates the first approach with Thomas Adams and the abridged resubmission with Abijah Adams; the narration does not collapse the brothers into a named addressee.
Manning to 'Mr. Addams,' dated approximately February 1799 by Samuel Eliot Morison, foreword to The Key of Libberty (Manning Association, 1922), pp. ix–x. Morison states that the manuscript was returned unread. This is not evidence that an editor's later prosecution caused the earlier return.
John Brown on the petition of free Black Philadelphians
Annals of Congress, reporting John Brown of Rhode Island · 2 January 1800 · reported debate
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
Background: not shown on screen.
He considered this as much personal property as a farm or a ship, which was incontestably so. … He was sorry to see the commitment supported by two such worthy members of the House, both good Federalists. [A laugh.]
First-person performance adaptation: I am sorry to see it backed by two such worthy members… both good Federalists. … I do not hold a slave in the world. But I consider them as much property as a farm or a ship.
Sourcing
Historical situation
The House debated a petition dated 30 December 1799 and presented on 2 January 1800 by Robert Waln. Brown opposed the proposed commitment and defended slaveholders' property claims.
Intended audience
Fellow representatives, including the Federalists supporting referral, and readers of the reported debates.
Purpose
Discourage action on the petition through party ridicule and property arguments.
Point of view
A Rhode Island merchant defending slavery and the slave trade. The Annals are a compiled report, not a stenographic transcript. Both performed lines turn reported remarks into first person and reorder them for the recorded laugh, then the property claim; neither is a verbatim Brown transcript.
Annals of Congress, 6th Congress, 1st session, House, 2 January 1800, pp. 232–234 (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1851), Internet Archive debatesandproce02galegoog. The 3 January 85–1 vote rebuked emancipation language; slave-trade and fugitive-law portions were referred to committee. The two Brown lines are adapted into first person and visibly labeled.
A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Yellow Fever
Absalom Jones and Richard Allen · Published 1794
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
a solicitation appeared in the public papers, to the people of colour to come forward and assist the distressed… with a kind of assurance, that people of our colour were not liable to take the infection. … we found a freedom to go forth, confiding in him who can preserve in the midst of a burning fiery furnace.
we found a freedom to go forth … The first we visited was a man in Emsley's alley, who was dying, and his wife lay dead at the time in the house, there were none to assist but two poor helpless children. We administered what relief we could
with a kind of assurance, that people of our colour were not liable to take the infection. … The whole amount of Cash we received for burying the dead, and for burying beds, is, … £233 10 4 … we are out of pocket, … £177 9 8 … We have buried several hundreds of poor persons and strangers, for which service we have never received, nor never asked any compensation. … That some extravagant prices were paid, we admit … That there were some few black people guilty of plundering the distressed, we acknowledge; but in that they only are pointed out, and made mention of, we esteem partial and injurious … We believe he has made more money by the sale of his ‘scraps’ than a dozen of the greatest extortioners among the black nurses.
Sourcing
Historical situation
After Philadelphia's 1793 epidemic, Jones and Allen answered published accusations against Black nurses and burial workers. Their account appeared in January 1794 and explicitly engaged Carey's second and third editions.
Intended audience
Philadelphia readers, prospective employers, white critics and allies, and the Black community whose reputation and livelihood were at stake.
Purpose
Describe their service, challenge selective racial blame, explain high wages, and defend their community through eyewitness testimony and accounts.
Point of view
Black organizers who performed the work and had a direct stake in the dispute. Their figures support claims about their own burial operation, not an independent audit of every nurse. They admit some theft and extravagant prices. Their rebuttal cannot establish that all accusations were false, and their defensive purpose does not by itself discredit their testimony.
Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, during the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793 (Philadelphia: William W. Woodward, 1794), p. 3 (choice and Emsley's Alley), pp. 6–7 (accounts), p. 8 (rejoinder and acknowledged wrongdoing), pp. 12–16 (reputation and mortality). National Park Service transcript with linked Harvard facsimile. Long-s typography in Emsley's and typographic quotation marks normalized; ellipses mark omissions. We don't adopt the pamphlet's account of Carey's whereabouts.
A Short Account of the Malignant Fever — the nurses paragraph
Mathew Carey · 1793 · second edition
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
The great demand for nurses afforded an opportunity for imposition, which was eagerly seized by some of the vilest of the blacks. They extorted two, three, four, and even five dollars a night for attendance, which would have been well paid by a single dollar. Some of them were even detected in plundering the houses of the sick. But it is wrong to cast a censure on the whole for this sort of conduct, as many people have done. The services of Jones, Allen, and Gray, and others of their colour, have been very great, and demand public gratitude.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Carey published successive editions of an account of Philadelphia's 1793 epidemic. Jones and Allen specifically objected to this paragraph in his second edition, pp. 76–77.
Intended audience
A reading public seeking an account of the catastrophe, including people unable to observe the nursing work themselves.
Purpose
Describe the epidemic, judge public conduct, and sell an informative account. These aims could coexist with racial generalization.
Point of view
A white printer selecting what conduct to record. This edition stigmatizes some Black nurses, explicitly warns against condemning all, and praises named leaders and others of their colour. Those distinctions matter. A published accusation establishes that a charge circulated; it is not proof of every alleged act. We make no assertion about whether Carey left or stayed in the city.
Mathew Carey, A Short Account of the Malignant Fever, Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia, second edition (Philadelphia: printed by the author, 23 November 1793), pp. 76–77. Wellcome copy, Internet Archive b30794390. Long-s typography normalized. Later revised text that says 'both coloured and white' is not silently substituted for this edition.
Witness testimony in Commonwealth v. Gabriel; modern summary · October 6, 1800
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
Background: not shown on screen.
Trial testimony describes planning for an uprising in the Richmond area in 1800. We refer to the plan, without inventing Gabriel’s own words or treating an intended flag as an object known to have been made.
Sourcing
Historical situation
Virginia tried Gabriel after the discovery of plans for an uprising by enslaved people.
Intended audience
A Virginia court and government officials.
Purpose
Establish the accused man’s participation in the plans.
Point of view
Witness testimony preserved by the prosecuting government; not Gabriel’s autobiography. The coda’s brief handoff does not reconstruct his voice.
Testimony in the Trial of Gabriel, 6 October 1800, Governor’s Office, Letters Received, James Monroe, RG 3, Library of Virginia; transcript at Encyclopedia Virginia.
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