Although it begins on the 12th of November, in 1779, this story is really an Independence Day story. Its central figure is a man named Prince Whipple (c. 1750 – 1796), a Negro slave, living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
On the 12th of November, 1779, Prince Whipple and nineteen other Portsmouth slaves petitioned the state legislature for their freedom. They presented well-based arguments for their cause. They were well aware that just a little over three years earlier a document known ...
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