HISTORICAL NEWS JOURNAL

February, 1778


"Restless Property"
Not Very Valuable

     The following ad, placed in
the Maryland Gazette, indicates
that "restless" slaves are not
valuable property.
FOR SALE: Healthy young
Negro. Has worked twelve years
in a merchant mill, and is complete
in that business. No other motive
than his having attempted to escape
to the enemy induces the proprietor
to dispose of him.
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Letters to the Editor

Sir:... I am one of that unfortunate race of 
men, distinguished from the rest of the
human species by a black skin and wooly
hair.
     Can it be, that a difference of color
alone can constitute a difference of species?
     To attempt to escape from the cruelties
exercised over us, is punished sometimes
with death.
     And yet I learn from writers that 
"master" and "slave" are in a state of war.
     But, when a Negro feels the wrongs of his
brothers and attempts to revenge them, I see
him treated as the most horrible of mankind.
     Do the rights of nature cease to be when
a Negro is to enjoy them? Why is patriotism,
in the heart of an African, called treason?

                                       From a free Negro
==========================

DO NOT USE
     SUGAR
    OR OTHER
PRODUCTS OF
SLAVE LABOR
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***The preceding were actual newspaper articles.