of
capture and punishment. In 1770, he, with four others, was killed in the
Boston Massacre. Ironically, the first man to die in the Colonial fight
for freedom was both an Afro-American and a runaway slave. His death
became symbolic of what was to be an underlying question in the years to
come: "What place would there be for the African in America once the
colonies gained freedom from the old world?"

The Quakers were the first group in America to attack slavery. In his
book Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, John Woolman
contended that no one had the right to own another human being. In 1758
the Philadelphia yearly meeting said that slavery was inconsistent with
Christianity, and in 1775 Quakers played a dominant role in the formation
of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first
antislavery society in America.

As the colonists began to agitate for their own freedom, many of them
became increasingly aware of the contradiction involved in slaveholders
fighting for their own freedom. "To contend for liberty," John Jay
wrote, "and to deny that blessing to others involves an inconsistency not
to be excused." James Otis maintained that the same arguments which were
used to defend the rights of the colonists against Britain could be used
with at least equal force against the colonists by their slaves. "It is
a clear truth," he said, "that those who every day barter away other
men's liberty will soon care little for their own."

In the same vein, Abigail Adams wrote her husband: "It always appeared a
most iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves for what we are daily
robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as
we have." Perhaps the most radical statement was made by the Reverend
Isaac Skillman in 1773. Again, comparing the struggle of the colonists
with that of the slaves, he said that it was in conformity with natural
law that a slave could rebel against his master.

In 1774 the Continental Congress did agree to a temporary termination of
the importation of Africans into the colonies, but, in reality, this was
a tactical blow against the British slave trade and not an attack against
slavery itself. In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence,
the British king was attacked for his in involvement in the slave trade,
and he was charged with going against human nature by violating the
sacred rights of life and liberty. However, this section