Some historians have argued that the truest proof the Confederate States of America, was a state that valued before all else, the ownership of human beings for the purpose of exploitation, was that when some Confederate military men, facing annihilation, suggested that slaves should be freed to fight for the Confederacy, that Jefferson Davis absolutely refused any such initiative.

Well, in the ad below, we are treated to one of the more expressive of the many threats that private servant owners made to upper class men of the military, such as Captains, the very men who had recently saved the provinces in a close-fought war. When a private citizen: a shoe maker, a nail-maker, an iron forge operator or shipwright, have the authority to threaten military officers with physical harm—which is what peril meant in military parlance, possible court martial and execution—Is not that society a slave society?

In Stillbirth of a Nation I quoted a speech from a Delaware Indian chief to the Quakers of Philadelphia, whose Indian servant-catchers had been bought off by the French and menaced the entire province. Yet these Quakers refused to arm their Irish, Scottish and English slaves until this savage humiliated them in public, declaring that he could not win a war on their cowardly behalf with only a handful of warriors. Yes, the first American abolitionist appears to have been an Indian.

July 3, 1766

The Pennsylvania Gazette

FIVE POUNDS Reward.

RUN away from the subscriber, a servant man and woman, named Walter and Winford Pritchet;

the man is a taylor to trade, and cannot do any other work;

the woman is a stay maker, and very handy at house work;

they both speak good English, but low, take snuff, and love liquor;

the man is about 5 feet 7 inches high, has black hair, and grey eyes;

the woman is but low of stature, pretty likely, has black eyes and black hair;

as they came lately from Ireland, their clothes are but ordinary, and probably have changed them.

Whoever secures them in any goal on this continent, and lets me know in the public paper of this province, shall have the above reward for both, or Fifty Shillings for either. I hear the man is listed, and has taken his wife with him to Fort Pitt. All gentlemen of the army are forbid to list or harbour them, and Captains of vessels to carry them off, at their peril. HENRY NEILL.

A Partial Exhumation of the American Dream