During the century previous to 1776, English and colonial slavers had carried into the West Indies and to English colonies nearly 3,000,000 negroes; and it is estimated that a quarter of a million more died of cruel treatment on shipboard, and their bodies were cast into the sea.
The words of the Declaration: "We hold these truths to be self- evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," were not accepted in fact as a charter of freedom for the enslaved African, but it remained for a Chief-Justice of the United States (Taney) more than eighty years later (March 5, 1857), in the Dred Scott decision, that did so much (as we will hereafter show) to disrupt the Union, to say:
"The language used in the Declaration of Independence shows that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used."
And the Chief-Justice said further:
"They [the negroes] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."
Quoting the Declaration, "that all men are created equal," he continued:
"The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this Declaration."
Notwithstanding this interpretation of the Declaration, free negroes fought for American independence at Bunker Hill; and although later it was decided that colored men should not be accepted as enlisted soldiers, General Washington did accept them, and thereafter they served in his army to the end of the war,(13) notably in large numbers at Yorktown.
The Royal Governor of Virginia in vain tried to induce slaves to revolt against their masters by promising them their freedom.
During Lord Howe's march through Pennsylvania it is said the slaves prayed for his success, believing he would set them free.