1767

A modern curry comb for horses.

“IN 1767,” John C. Miller has noted, “four Virginia slaves found guilty of conspiring to murder an overseer were hanged, their heads cut off, and put on public display.” (300/156) 

    In Philadelphia, a French traveler reported: 

Slaves are here regarded as being part of the family: they are assiduously cared for when they are sick; they are well fed and clothed. They attached themselves to their masters, whose children they regard as their own. Several women of my acquaintance have brought to them daily the children of their negroes, caress them, feed them, have them play with their own children. While traveling I have often happened to spend the night in the houses of Dutch or Germans. In the morning the negroes wake them, crying “Get up, master, it is time for us to go to work.” The master gets up, they eat a light breakfast, work together, and dine together as equals. They are clothed in the same way, and the slave can be recognized only by his color.

(300/157-158)

 

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TO HELP PAY the expenses of governing the Thirteen Colonies, Parliament passes the Townshend Acts. Duties are placed on glass, paper, lead, painter’s colors and tea.

 

    Massachusetts leaders call for nonimportation of British goods – a boycott – if you will. 

   “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies” is published, first in newspapers and then as a popular pamphlet. John Dickinson declares that Parliament cannot tax the colonies. He calls the Townshend Acts unconstitutional, and denounces the suspension of the New York Assembly as a threat to colonial liberties. 

(As already noted, this suspension does not occur.)

 

    Philip Vickers Fithian reports on colonial life, including slavery, in his journals and letters. On one occasion he talked to a cruel overseer who told him how he handled disobedient slaves: 

For Sullenness, Obstinacy or Idleness, says he, Take a Negro, strip him, tie him fast to a post; take then a sharp Curry-Comb, & curry him severely till he is well scrap’d; & call a Boy with some dry Hay, and make the Boy rub him down for several Minutes, then salt him, & unloose him. He will attend to his Business (said the inhuman Infidel) afterwards! (300/151-152)