Contents: New England slavery. "Short of the truth": Slavery in the lives of whites. Another truth: enslavement in the lives of people of color -- The antislavery impulse. To "clear our spirits": Whites' expectations of freedom from slavery. The "privilage of freemen": Blacks' expectations of freedom from slavery -- "Slaves of the community": gradual emancipation in practice -- A "Negro spirit": em-bodying difference -- "To abolish the Black man": enacting the antislavery promise -- "A thing unknown": the free white republic as New England writ large -- "We are the alphabet": free people of color and the discourse of "race."
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Joanne Pope Melish (1999) studied this question.