00:00:00.560 - 00:00:17.950

Welcome to another lecture in our Benjamin Franklin series. And some of you have been here for a couple of our events, others are new, but we're glad to have all of you. Today, I am really excited about today's presentation, Freedom

00:00:17.950 - 00:00:33.710

and Unfreedom in Franklin's America. So the title I think is very intriguing. Our presenter today is Doctor Christian Koot, who is a one year veteran faculty member here at Towson and his area of

00:00:33.710 - 00:00:50.650

expertise is Colonial American history, History of the Atlantic World, Caribbean history, and economic history. Courses that he's been teaching are the History of the US to the mid 19th century, Colonial America, and

00:00:50.650 - 00:01:03.680

Revolutionary America. He has an undergraduate degree from UVA in History and Econ and has his Master's and PhD both in History from the University of Delaware.

00:01:04.480 - 00:01:25.040

He is bringing to us information about a kind of a controversial side of Benjamin Franklin and I think will give us some insight to Ben's personality and philosophy and his values that some of us may not be that familiar with.

00:01:26.880 - 00:01:40.790

Christian Koot. Christian Koot, I'm sorry, I'm learning to pronounce his last name. Thank you, and I want to thank you, Debbie, and the library for

00:01:40.790 - 00:01:55.200

asking me to talk today and for bringing such a great exhibit to us. And thank all of you for being here this evening. On Sunday morning, October 6th, 1723, a 17 year old runaway

00:01:55.200 - 00:02:04.720

printer's apprentice from Boston entered the city of Philadelphia. Tired and hungry from his long journey, the young man made a ridiculous impression.

00:02:05.040 - 00:02:16.380

Clad in his working dress, his pockets stuffed out with shirts and stockings, he carried a loaf of bread under each arm while eating another. It would have taken quite an active imagination to predict

00:02:16.380 - 00:02:26.720

the great things that this poor bedraggled apprentice would accomplish during the next five decades, writing 48 years later from the comfort of the rooms he let from Margaret Stevenson in the heart of London.

00:02:26.960 - 00:02:36.820

It must have been amusing for Benjamin Franklin to conjure up the account of his first arrival in Philadelphia in his autobiography. As an innovative

00:02:36.820 - 00:02:50.050

printer and businessman, scientist, and an intellectual, a British imperial official and a diplomat, the 65-year-old Franklin was the most famous American in the world. Told from this perspective, his most awkward, ridiculous

00:02:50.050 - 00:03:03.200

appearance, as he would later write, served to contrast the wealth, fame, and authority he commanded so that the reader could, in Franklin's words, quote, "compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure he had since made."

00:03:04.320 - 00:03:18.030

And later in life, Franklin would work very hard to present himself as a diplomat or a statesman. And this is just on of the many, many portraits that were painted of him that show him as not a printer's apprentice, but rather as, of

00:03:18.030 - 00:03:29.440

course, a statesman. Forced to flee his older brother and father, who, in Franklin's telling had conspired to keep him in an exploitative apprenticeship, the young man arrived in Philadelphia

00:03:29.440 - 00:03:42.170

virtually penniless and without connections. Lacking the advantages of economic capital, formal education, and family ties the great men depended upon for their success in the 18th century, Franklin had to rely on

00:03:42.170 - 00:03:56.160

his intellect, his training, and a strong work ethic to succeed. Or that's, anyway, how he wanted everyone to think of it. In short, as Franklin told it, his life was the classic rags to riches story of the self-made man, a story which, by the mid

00:03:56.160 - 00:04:09.520

19th century, when Franklin's autobiography was very popular, had become the story of America, the small Democratic Republic which had thrown off the yoke of imperial rule to become a bastion of democratic opportunity and wealth.

00:04:10.160 - 00:04:23.170

This correlation between opportunity and freedom is an essential one for implicit and Franklin's autobiography was a celebration of the freedoms of America and of democracy. Franklin, after all, did not find success in London in the

00:04:23.170 - 00:04:36.880

Old World, but rather in the New World in America. Not a war hero like Washington, nor a great spokesman of liberty like Jefferson, Franklin is often best remembered as a hard working, self disciplined, frugal and practical man who had

00:04:36.880 - 00:04:49.260

risen from obscurity to achieve fame, and this is exactly the image he fostered in his autobiography. Franklin was, of course, a great statesman, one of the few founding fathers to play a critical role in crafting all

00:04:49.260 - 00:05:03.150

three founding documents, the Declaration, the Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War, and the Constitution. Nevertheless, Franklin took great care to be sure that he was remembered as a common man, distinguished not by his birth

00:05:03.150 - 00:05:17.280

or occupation, but by his grit and his determination. This persona is perhaps best captured by the aphorisms that he began writing in 1732, when he published the first of his 24 annual editions of Poor Richard's Almanack.

00:05:18.000 - 00:05:26.760

These annual books, issued just before the New Year, were cheap, (inaudible) calendars with tides, important dates in the phases of the moon. They were handy.

00:05:27.320 - 00:05:38.920

They were purchased, as Franklin pointed out, by, quote, "The common people who bought scarce any other book." Printers filled their blank space with poems, jokes, prophecies, and proverbs, and Franklin was no exception.

00:05:39.440 - 00:05:52.240

His wit, however, and his genius transformed Poor Richard's into a bestseller and introduced him to thousands of Americans, and many of the aphorisms he collected and composed still ring in our ears, perhaps in our parents'

00:05:52.760 - 00:06:04.890

voices. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes. And, perhaps my favorite, three can keep a secret

00:06:04.890 - 00:06:15.840

if two of them are dead. Focusing on folk wisdom, and geared to teach hard work, frugality, and discipline, these sayings have in many ways come to represent Franklin the man.

00:06:16.520 - 00:06:26.140

There is no better way to convince yourself of this than to browse through the children's section in any good bookstore, or library for that matter. There you will find, as I recently did in the children's

00:06:26.140 - 00:06:36.120

section at the bookstore Colonial Williamsburg, endless biographies of Franklin. Most of these books follow the outlines of Franklin's autobiography and trace his rise from obscurity to fame.

00:06:36.680 - 00:06:47.720

In almost every case, as in many of the popular and academic histories of Franklin, this success story is tied to freedom and is tied to democracy. In America, the argument runs, anyone can become great like

00:06:47.720 - 00:06:58.340

Benjamin Franklin. All they need is dedication, discipline, and hard work. Note also that almost all of these children's books have an image of Franklin as a printer, that is, as a working man, on the

00:06:58.340 - 00:07:08.480

cover, something that one does not see in biographies of Washington or of Jefferson, who are almost always pictured as statesmen. In this way, Franklin has been wrenched free of the 18th

00:07:08.480 - 00:07:19.560

century and has become in many ways a timeless American. As you've probably already gathered, I do not intend to repeat this narrative of Franklin's life with you this afternoon.

00:07:20.040 - 00:07:31.280

Rather, much as Professor Fruchtman did last week, I hope to cut through this mythical Franklin and reconnect him with his roots in colonial America. When we do this, it becomes clear that as extraordinary as

00:07:31.280 - 00:07:40.520

Franklin was, it was also quite typical of most successful colonists. Luckily, we do not have to completely abandon the mythical Franklin in order to shift our perspective.

00:07:40.920 - 00:07:51.000

In fact, returning to the iconic image of a young Franklin with two loaves of bread under his arms, another stuffed in his mouth, and a stocking spilling out of his pockets can serve our purposes nicely.

00:07:51.720 - 00:08:05.040

In his account, the 17 year old, penniless yet ambitious apprentice was supposed to stand for the young, rough, unprivileged potential of all Americans and of America itself. At the same time, though, the apprentice also represents

00:08:05.040 - 00:08:15.980

another, perhaps more familiar type in colonial America, the unfree labourer. Three days before Franklin arrived in Philadelphia, Andrew Bradford, the printer of the city's most notable weekly

00:08:15.980 - 00:08:26.620

newspaper, the American Weekly Mercury, printed three advertisements for the return of valuable property on the back page of his four-page paper. One of these notices concerned an indentured servant named

00:08:26.620 - 00:08:36.370

James McCuddy, who had recently fled his owner in Newcastle County of what was then Pennsylvania and is now Delaware. Two advertisements concern the escape of skilled

00:08:36.370 - 00:08:48.600

servants, a tailor from Sir William Keith and a weaver from Jonathan Hansen of Baltimore County. Each owner offered a reward of between 40 shillings and 3 pounds depending on the value of their servant, which testifies to how

00:08:48.600 - 00:09:01.090

valuable in fact these labourers were. That same day Bradford also printed an advertisement placed by Peter Bainton and Robert Ellis for the sale of, quote, "a very good negro man aged about 30 years, lately

00:09:01.090 - 00:09:12.990

imported from South Carolina." When Franklin arrived in Philadelphia on October 6th, the American Weekly Mercury of three days before would surely have still been lying around Philadelphians houses, in the

00:09:12.990 - 00:09:20.640

numerous ale houses and inns that line the city's closely packed streets. Perhaps those dining with Franklin at the Crooked Billet on Water Street

00:09:20.640 - 00:09:32.400

that afternoon had perused those very ads and were trying to determine if the young man matched the description of the runaway tailor, a man who was of middle stature with a thin visage and was known to wear grey stockings

00:09:32.400 - 00:09:40.040

and an old hat. Whatever the case, Franklin drew suspicion, later recalling fellow guests that asked him several sly questions.

00:09:40.640 - 00:09:52.070

And of course, Franklin did have reason to worry, for he was indeed a runaway after all. Advertisements for owners, runaway servants, apprentices and slaves were a constant feature of colonial American

00:09:52.070 - 00:10:04.330

newspapers, where they serve not only to underwrite the cost of printing those papers, but more importantly, they functioned as a way for masters to reclaim their lost property. With abundant land but little labour, especially skilled

00:10:04.330 - 00:10:16.340

labour, American businessmen, craftsman, farmers, and plantation owners depended upon unfree labour. Because free workers could always find better wages or land of their own elsewhere, most Americans came to realise that

00:10:16.340 - 00:10:27.560

owning their labour force was the best way to guarantee that their investment in labour could produce profits. Even then, of course, it was always possible for an apprentice, an indentured servant, or a slave to flee.

00:10:28.160 - 00:10:39.520

To prevent their labour stealing themselves, colonial Americans developed complicated and detailed laws to punish those who ran, to prevent others from employing runaways, and to reward those who returned bound labourers.

00:10:40.320 - 00:10:52.200

In this way, unfreedom was at the centre of colonial American life, and nowhere was this more true than in 18th century Philadelphia. When Franklin arrived in 1723, the city was still quite small.

00:10:52.600 - 00:11:00.920

Its population numbered just 6,000, and most residents knew one another. Over the course of the next three decades, however, the city grew dramatically.

00:11:01.280 - 00:11:14.530

By 1750, the population approached 20,000, and in 1770 it had reached 30,000. Much of the expansion came during the 1730s and 1740s as the Mid-Atlantic region turned from a frontier backwater into a

00:11:14.530 - 00:11:26.290

dynamic center of trade and production. Buttressed by sugar planters, exploding demand for grain, dairy products, and lumber, Philadelphia merchants quickly began to harness the fertile hinterland of eastern

00:11:26.290 - 00:11:37.390

Pennsylvania to their advantage. As these merchants discovered the market potential of the colonies to their South, Philadelphia boomed and the free inhabitants of the Mid-Atlantic began to enjoy high standards of

00:11:37.390 - 00:11:48.320

living. By 1750, Franklin and others like him could flip through the pages of Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette or glance through the windows of the shops that lined Market Street and find

00:11:48.320 - 00:11:59.270

imported goods from around the world, including spices, China, glassware, and textiles. Soon these very goods, even those which had been exorbitant luxuries just two decades before, began to adorn the

00:11:59.270 - 00:12:10.000

bodies, fill the bellies, and decorate the houses of Philadelphia's elite. It has long been acknowledged that the prosperity commerce brought to Philadelphia and other port cities like it

00:12:10.000 - 00:12:23.130

depended in no small part on Caribbean and Southern slavery. So busy growing sugar, tobacco and rice, these planters found it unprofitable even to feed themselves and their slaves, and thus they turned to Philadelphia in the Mid-Atlantic for the

00:12:23.130 - 00:12:36.110

supply that could sustain their plantations. Some have even gone so far as to directly and unfavourably contrast the violence and exploitation of plantation slavery to the thriving farm based agriculture

00:12:36.110 - 00:12:47.360

of Pennsylvania. Labeling the Mid-Atlantic the best poor man's country, they've argued that immigrant farmers might serve as indentured servants for seven years, but ultimately these men, unlike the

00:12:47.360 - 00:12:56.520

slaves of the Caribbean, would secure their freedom, land and prosperity. Recent research search suggests that this idolized image has been exaggerated.

00:12:57.480 - 00:13:11.090

In fact, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey were most notable not for their lack of slaves, but for the high number of both indentured servants and slaves they bought. In all, by 1740, African slaves made-up between 6 and 10% of

00:13:11.090 - 00:13:22.000

Pennsylvania's population. It is only because of their role in the abolition movement and their efforts to gradually end slavery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that we think of Northern and

00:13:22.000 - 00:13:33.450

Mid-Atlantic colonies as free colonies and those in the South as slave colonies. In the 18th century, slavery was ubiquitous in every colony, and in fact, the presence of a variety of unfree labourers,

00:13:33.450 - 00:13:48.000

including slaves, signified healthy, wealthy, and viable colonies to most 18th century Americans. In Philadelphia, of course, there's no exception. This city, like Boston and New York, depended on unfree labour.

00:13:48.520 - 00:14:00.400

With labour scarce, artisans and merchants turned to indentured servants as well as slaves to meet their needs. To this point, I've been using this term unfree labour and collapsing slavery, apprenticeship, indentured

00:14:00.400 - 00:14:12.400

server servitude into this category. So let me pause for a minute and explain why this is. Scholars tend to use the term unfree labour rather than just slavery or some other term because it evokes the jumbled

00:14:12.400 - 00:14:22.460

reality and confused nature of bound labour in colonial America. And technically, there are at least three different categories of legally bound labour that consumers had to choose from

00:14:22.460 - 00:14:33.050

during the 18th century. First were of course apprentices. An apprenticeship was a legal contract between an apprentice and a master Craftsman, that is, a skilled

00:14:33.050 - 00:14:43.600

artisan such as a blacksmith, a candle maker, a tailor, a gunsmith or yes, a printer. These contracts are often drawn up, signed before the courts, entered into deed books and were considered binding.

00:14:44.320 - 00:14:53.720

As part of the contract, an apprentice agreed to keep trade secrets, obtain his master's permission before leaving the premises, and abstain from vices such as frequenting taverns and the theater.

00:14:54.480 - 00:15:03.800

Most important, the apprentice agreed to work for the master without pay for the term of the contract. The contract also listed the obligations of the master craftsman to his apprentice.

00:15:04.360 - 00:15:16.400

Masters provided basic education, that is, reading, writing, some arithmetic, training in what was usually known as the art and mystery of a craft, room and board, and sometimes a set of tools or clothes

00:15:16.400 - 00:15:28.600

upon completion of the apprenticeship. Usually lasting between seven and nine years, most boys became apprentices between 12 and 14, and were given their freedom, which is what it was called at age 21.

00:15:29.280 - 00:15:40.600

At that point they were prepared to enter the free labour force. In most cases, these individuals did not have the capital required to set up a shop themselves, so they usually served as journeymen, that is, hired hands for master

00:15:40.600 - 00:15:49.520

craftsmen. Not owning their own shop and so unable to marry and begin their own households, many of these men (inaudible) over their lack of freedom, enduring

00:15:49.520 - 00:15:58.800

poor working conditions, and often becoming dependent upon their employers. Some of these journeymen did eventually become masters themselves, but many more did not.

00:15:59.360 - 00:16:09.120

Moreover, these categories were often temporary, and those who became masters were just as likely to slip back to being journeymen as they were to be successfully independent masters.

00:16:09.920 - 00:16:20.720

Establishing self-sufficiency was not easy, and probably as many apprentices failed as succeeded in finding complete freedom. And that perhaps explains why the most popular print series in

00:16:20.720 - 00:16:31.520

early America is this print series by Hogarth, the English engraver, called The Industrious Apprentice, which tells the story of two apprentices which you can probably just make out up here.

00:16:31.520 - 00:16:40.280

They're weavers. We have one good apprentice working diligently and one bad apprentice not. This is a twelve plate series and I'll just show a couple of them.

00:16:40.480 - 00:16:56.380

The next plate shows the good apprentice at church praying, the bad apprentice playing in the graveyard instead. And by the time this continues throughout this series, by the time you get to the last series, you have the bad apprentice on

00:16:56.380 - 00:17:05.440

his way to be hanged, and you have the good apprentice elected Lord Mayor of London. And the story here is, of course, about hard work and discipline.

00:17:05.640 - 00:17:14.320

And these prints were so popular because they tried to instill the very ideas that Franklin was talking about. It's hard work and discipline that gets you where you're going.

00:17:14.560 - 00:17:30.520

Vice and distraction ends you dancing at the end of the noose. Another form of bound labour was indentured servants. These individuals, like apprentices, were legally bound to work for another person for a predetermined period of time.

00:17:31.000 - 00:17:38.920

In the 18th century, this tenure was often, but not always, about seven years. At the end of that period, most indentured servants were promised freedom dues.

00:17:39.400 - 00:17:51.800

In the 17th century, particularly in the Chesapeake, these dues were usually in the form of land, but by the 18th century it was more common for servants to receive a suit of clothes, perhaps a few coins, or perhaps

00:17:51.800 - 00:18:04.480

nothing at all, as their freedom dues. Unlike apprenticeship, however, there are few obligations for the master beyond providing food and shelter, making the lives of indentured servants often exceedingly difficult.

00:18:05.120 - 00:18:17.050

Finally, indentured servants, unlike most apprentices, were transferable, that is, they could be bought and sold. Though this was not common by the 18th century, it was a possibility, and one that of course indentured servants

00:18:17.050 - 00:18:26.860

feared. While most indentured servants were unskilled, those who were trained in a skill were probably highly... Or not probably, they were highly sought after because they could find

00:18:26.860 - 00:18:36.680

employment elsewhere. These men were the most likely to run away, and it's no coincidence that in that American Weekly from 1723 that three of the runaways are all skilled workmen.

00:18:37.400 - 00:18:49.000

They could find employment elsewhere, but this meant that they were often more tightly controlled. Their freedoms, their ability to move around, to have free time as it may be, was often sharply curtailed.

00:18:50.480 - 00:19:01.800

Another source of indentured servants in the 18th century were British convicts sold to colonists in the Americas as punishment for their crimes. Poorly treated, these convicts usually endured the harshest

00:19:01.800 - 00:19:14.150

work environments of any non African workers in colonial America. The final type of bound labour in the 18th century was the kind of course that we're most familiar with, the chattel

00:19:14.150 - 00:19:23.930

enslavement of Africans. Bound to a master for life, these individuals were a major labour source throughout the colonies. While we tend to think of most slaves as field hands or

00:19:23.930 - 00:19:35.740

domestics, many were trained as artisans. Though they did not have formal apprenticeships, many masters trained slaves, especially those bought by blacksmiths, furniture makers and yes, printers, giving them

00:19:35.740 - 00:19:48.570

specialized skills that made them more valuable but also often left them vulnerable as well. In short, the unfree labour world of the colonies was exceedingly complicated, and it's important to remember that

00:19:48.570 - 00:20:01.400

while there are significant differences between these forms of labour, most artisans, merchants and farmers alternated among these sources depending upon availability. It is only at the very end of the 18th century and in the 19th

00:20:01.400 - 00:20:09.920

century, as indentured servants disappeared, that the main source of unfree labour became slavery. Before this period, these categories were much less rigid.

00:20:10.280 - 00:20:19.680

Unfree labour in many cases was unfree labour. What mattered most to colonists, and, as we will see, to Franklin, was being able to control and profit from these forms of labour.

00:20:20.240 - 00:20:32.520

That was the path to power and prosperity. As a young man, Franklin became exposed, as all colonial children must have, to the varieties and complexities of freedom and unfreedom within his own home.

00:20:33.280 - 00:20:45.890

His father, a candle maker, owned at least one indentured servant during Franklin's youth, and this man almost certainly lived in the family's home on Union Street in Boston. Here Franklin would have watched his father Josiah interact with

00:20:45.890 - 00:20:57.380

his servant, and it would have been impossible for the precocious youth not to have begun to understand the nature of freedom and unfreedom. In 1713, Franklin got another chance to see bound labour when

00:20:57.380 - 00:21:08.270

the merchants Henry Dewick and William Astin temporarily lodged with Josiah Franklin and advertised for the sale of six slaves. If interested, their advertisement instructed,

00:21:08.270 - 00:21:19.630

prospective buyers should visit their rooms above Josiah Franklin's shop to inspect the slaves. We don't know what the seven-year old Franklin thought of this human bondage living in his father's home, but four

00:21:19.630 - 00:21:29.720

years later, Franklin himself would become a bound labourer. Unable to afford his son's education at Boston Latin, Josiah Franklin put Benjamin to work in his shop when the boy

00:21:29.720 - 00:21:36.600

was eleven. This, however, did not last long, finding the work unpleasant, with his father clearly deciding he could do without him.

00:21:37.320 - 00:21:47.430

The young Franklin was soon apprenticed to his elder brother James. A printer who had just returned from London with a type and a press, James intended to go into business for himself and was in

00:21:47.430 - 00:21:58.990

need of labor. At the age of eleven, therefore, Franklin lost his freedom. Whether the true meaning of his unfreedom came to him the day he signed his indenture and agreed to bind himself to his 20 year

00:21:58.990 - 00:22:11.400

old brother for nine years, or the first time his brother beat him, as he almost certainly did, is unclear. His decision six years later to flee, however, tells us he was desperate enough to break the law and to seize his freedom.

00:22:12.760 - 00:22:23.080

During the six years he worked for his brother, James prospered, establishing a shop and even beginning a newspaper, the New England Current. Determined to challenge the Boston establishment,

00:22:23.280 - 00:22:35.520

James's paper was sharply critical of Boston's ruling elite, and eventually this criticism landed him in prison. Unable to print this paper, James devised a scheme whereby he would cancel his brother Benjamin's indenture and allow

00:22:35.520 - 00:22:49.080

Benjamin to print the current under his own name. And you can see that this edition is printed by Benjamin Franklin, not under his brother's name. In exchange, though, James forced Benjamin to sign a secret

00:22:49.080 - 00:23:00.170

contract that maintains the terms of the apprenticeship. Nine months later, with his brother now out of jail, the two quarrelled. Frustrated by his lack of freedom, Franklin did what many

00:23:00.170 - 00:23:13.250

desperate, bound workers did. He ran. What he would come to realize over the course of the next decade is that in order to maintain and protect his newly won freedom, he would need to exploit the unfreedom of

00:23:13.250 - 00:23:25.140

others. After several years working as a journeyman printer in both Philadelphia and in London, Franklin finally became a master himself, opening a printing shop in Philadelphia with his friend

00:23:25.140 - 00:23:34.840

Hugh Meredith in 1728. With two other shops competing in what was still a small city, Franklin soon realised that his success would depend upon earning a reputation for hard work.

00:23:35.960 - 00:23:46.740

Later, he would claim that he made it his practice to carry heavy rolls of paper into the shop during business hours so as to demonstrate to neighbours his industry. Such actions, he maintained, were essential to he and

00:23:46.740 - 00:23:59.100

Meredith, earning a reputation for what he called character, a trait that, of course, brought capital as well. Soon after opening their shop, Franklin and Meredith decided to buy the Pennsylvania Gazette from their old employer, Samuel

00:23:59.100 - 00:24:10.160

Heimer, and the two men began to print the paper that would make Franklin famous. Meredith, however, lost interest in the business, and when he began to drink heavily, Franklin arranged for loans from several

00:24:10.160 - 00:24:22.030

friends to buy his partner out, making him, at the age of 23, the master of his own printing shop and the editor of his own newspaper. Facing the burden of new debts, Franklin expanded his business

00:24:22.030 - 00:24:36.880

again, hiring a journeyman, an apprentice and also opening a stationery and bookshop on the floor below his print shop. Newly married and also a father, Franklin was a man on the make. It is at this moment that he bought his first African slaves

00:24:36.880 - 00:24:48.940

and indentured servants. Unlike the incredibly rich accounts of his own labour and his own rise from unfreedom to freedom, in his autobiography, Franklin does not mention when he bought his first slaves in

00:24:48.940 - 00:24:59.440

that work, or in any of his private letters. Therefore, we are left to speculate and to piece it together using other fragmentary evidence. As detailed by historian David Waldstriker,

00:24:59.720 - 00:25:12.200

two bills in the surviving papers indicate that Franklin held slaves or mixed race indentured servants by at least 1735. In December of that year, a shoemaker named Warner recorded Franklin's purchase.

00:25:12.280 - 00:25:22.160

Oops. Here's his printing shop. By the way, this is from the the version of the exhibit that's downstairs that was in Philadelphia originally.

00:25:22.160 - 00:25:38.400

This is a sort of common printer shop. You can see the type case of the manual printer. Back to this shoemaker, the shoemaker named Warner Recorder Franklin's purchase of a new pair of shoes for his negro boy.

00:25:38.400 - 00:25:58.760

You can see that right here. Then in 1742, hat maker Charles Moore sent Franklin a bill for a beaver hat for "your man Joseph," and another for "your negro" in 1745, and that one is on the right.

00:26:00.720 - 00:26:09.920

Who was Joseph? Was he the same negro boy of 1735 or 1745? It's unclear. Were these individuals indentured servants or slaves?

00:26:10.280 - 00:26:20.960

Again, we do not know. What we do know, though, is that very soon after he became a property owner, a master craftsman with his own shop, Franklin decided to invest in bound labour and that one of

00:26:20.960 - 00:26:33.440

these labourers was very likely an African slave named Joseph. And this is perhaps one of the great tragedies of slavery. While we know so many details of Franklin's life, we know virtually nothing about those he enslaved.

00:26:33.720 - 00:26:48.560

It's as if their experiences have been washed away. While the chronology and details of his early slaveholding remain elusive, we do know more about other ways that Franklin profited from bound labour. As a newspaper publisher.

00:26:48.560 - 00:27:00.840

Franklin's chief source of revenue, as is true today for papers, was from the sale of advertisements. While annual subscription sold for just ten shillings, advertisements sold for between five and seven shillings apiece.

00:27:01.480 - 00:27:13.540

Thus, most printers devoted the back page of their four-page weekly papers, some of which were actually called advertisers, such as the Pennsylvania Weekly Advertiser, to advertisements. Sharing the page with haberdashers

00:27:13.540 - 00:27:26.310

announcing the arrival of the latest fashions from London, silversmiths heralding their goods, and stationers advertising the varieties of writing paper were those selling slaves and offering rewards for the return of their slaves and

00:27:26.310 - 00:27:34.040

servants. The prevalence of those ads relating to bondage suggests that this was a major impasse for colonists to purchase these papers.

00:27:35.240 - 00:27:46.200

During the 19 years in which Franklin owned and managed The Gazette, between 1/5 and 1/4 of the papers advertisements concerned unfree labour. Take those, for example, from just one randomly chosen issue

00:27:46.200 - 00:27:58.480

of The Gazette. On May 15th, 1740, Franklin printed advertisements for the sale of both, quote, "a very likely Welsh servant girl for three years," and a, quote, "likely young negro fellow to be disposed of

00:27:58.480 - 00:28:09.890

fit for either town or country." Inquire at the printer. He also printed a runaway ad plays by Manassas Woods of Bucks County, for, quote, "two servant men, one Londoner, named Reuben Shore,

00:28:09.890 - 00:28:21.840

about 22 years of age, and an Irishman named William Q." At other times, Franklin participated more actively in selling bound labor. On September 12th, 1732, for example, he announced the sale

00:28:21.840 - 00:28:33.760

of, quote, "a Dutch servant man and his wife for two years and eight months, a genteel riding chair, almost new, a ten-cord flat with new sails and rigging, a fishing boat, and sundry sorts of household goods."

00:28:34.400 - 00:28:47.800

If interested, the ad concluded, inquire at the printer. In no small part, advertisements for the sale and capture of slaves and servants enabled Franklin to become a free, property owning, and eventually wealthy man.

00:28:48.400 - 00:28:59.240

In other words, his success rested on the unfreedom of others. The idea of Franklin as an enslaver and as someone whose career rested on slavery is uncomfortable.

00:28:59.880 - 00:29:12.140

After all, he was a man who, as our own Jack Fruchtman has detailed in his work, befriended the famous abolitionist Granville Sharp when resident in England during the 1760s and 70s, and inspired by this relationship, published

00:29:12.140 - 00:29:27.340

several essays critical of the slave trade. Moreover, at the end of his life, Franklin became the first President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and his last public act was to send a

00:29:27.340 - 00:29:39.070

petition to Congress on behalf of the Society asking for the abolition of slavery and an end to the slave trade February of 1790, just months before he died. How then should we understand Franklin's relationship with

00:29:39.070 - 00:29:48.210

slavery? Is he the cold hearted businessman who depended upon slavery to advance himself and enrich his family? Or is he the rational figure of the Enlightenment who realized

00:29:48.210 - 00:30:00.060

the horrors of unfreedom stood against the tide of history? I want to suggest, of course, that he was both. What Franklin did not - While Franklin did not discuss his ownership of slaves very

00:30:00.060 - 00:30:11.570

often, it is clear that over time he grew uncomfortable with slavery. This discomfort first appeared in one of his most revealing letters regarding slavery written to his mother in April 1750,

00:30:11.570 - 00:30:21.920

Franklin enigmatically described the domestic incident of some kind that resulted in him injuring a leg. He wrote, quote, "my leg, which you inquire after, is not quite well.

00:30:22.400 - 00:30:33.000

I still keep those servants, but the man not in my house. I've hired him out to the man that takes care of my Dutch printing office, who agrees to keep him in victuals and clothes and to pay me a dollar a week for his work.

00:30:34.080 - 00:30:44.120

His wife, since that affair, behaves exceedingly well, but we conclude to sell them both the first good opportunity, for we do not like negro servants." Notice the language here.

00:30:44.520 - 00:30:57.000

In describing what happened, Franklin clearly blamed the enslaved couple and invoked their race in doing so. Another piece, composed just after this incident, offers additional insight into Franklin's views on slavery.

00:30:58.160 - 00:31:10.000

In 1751, Franklin actually wrote it in 1751, it was published I think in 1754, wrote one of his most famous early pamphlets, his Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind.

00:31:10.640 - 00:31:22.700

In this piece, inspired at least partly by the events within his household the year before, Franklin argued that the future of the American colonies, and thus of the British Empire, lay not in the reliance on slavery, but in the promise of free

00:31:22.700 - 00:31:31.680

labor. Reflecting back to his own success, Franklin argued that the scarcity of labor in the American colonies, something which, of course, he had wrestled with as a printer, created

00:31:31.680 - 00:31:44.520

opportunities for upward mobility. Wages combined with abundant land allowed North Americans, as Franklin argued to quote, save money enough in a short time to purchase a new piece of land sufficient for a plantation or

00:31:44.520 - 00:31:53.040

whereon he subsists the family. However, Franklin cautioned, slavery threatened to destroy this possibility because it destroyed jobs and suppressed wages.

00:31:53.800 - 00:32:05.490

In other words, Franklin argued that slavery should be abolished in the American colonies. Notice, though, that Franklin did not rest his anti-slavery position on the immorality of slavery, but rather on slavery's

00:32:05.490 - 00:32:13.600

effect on whites. Citing the example of the British West Indies, he maintained that slavery was dangerous because it created lazy Europeans.

00:32:14.400 - 00:32:27.250

The introduction of, quote, "negroes" into the English sugar islands, he wrote, has greatly diminished the whites there. The poor are by this means deprived of employment, while the whites who have slaves are enfeebled, and, being educated

00:32:27.250 - 00:32:41.830

in idleness, are rendered unfit to get a living by industry. Not content to leave matters there, Franklin concluded his essay by noting a final reason that slavery was distasteful. It brought tawny people, who are by their nature thieves, to a

00:32:41.830 - 00:32:52.110

land that should be reserved for the white. Why increase the sons of Africa by planting them in America, Franklin questioned, where we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all

00:32:52.110 - 00:33:01.780

blacks and tawnies, of increasing the lovely white and red. Just as in his letter of the year before, slavery was a problem for Franklin, not because of it what it did to

00:33:01.780 - 00:33:12.640

slaves, but because they might contaminate Europeans. Almost 20 years later, Franklin again returned to the theme of the inferiority of Africans to explain the problem with slavery.

00:33:13.200 - 00:33:24.350

Living in London during the late 1760s and 1770s, Franklin became an engaged observer of the growing British abolitionist movement. These men's critiques of American slave owners like

00:33:24.350 - 00:33:38.940

Franklin must have unsettled him, for in 1770 he decided to confront slavery again in print in the London newspaper The Public Advertiser. Writing anonymously, Franklin addressed the issue through a

00:33:38.940 - 00:33:51.460

fictionalized discussion between an Englishman, a Scotchman, and an American who debated abolitionist Granville Sharp's 1769 book attacking slavery. When the Englishman in Franklin's piece accuses

00:33:51.460 - 00:34:02.050

Americans of being tyrants for denying freedom to their slaves, Franklin's American responds by arguing that slavery was not universal in America. In New England in the Mid-Atlantic, the American

00:34:02.050 - 00:34:13.320

argues, there are very few slaves. Perhaps one in a hundred colonists owns a slave, and those that are enslaved there are not employed in the hardest labour. But his footmen are housemates in the capital towns.

00:34:14.120 - 00:34:25.320

Therefore, Franklin continued, it was unfair to indict all Americans of not loving liberty if one man of a hundred in England were dishonest, he continued, can we say the Englishmen are all rogues and thieves?

00:34:26.360 - 00:34:37.250

Ignoring the prevalence of slavery in the South and overlooking the central role that it played in places like New York and Philadelphia, as well as in Franklin's own household, he turned anti- slavery arguments around,

00:34:37.250 - 00:34:46.940

focusing on where slavery did not exist rather than where it did. Not content simply to wish slavery away, Franklin's American also sought to convince his English companion that the

00:34:46.940 - 00:34:58.240

institution was not as cruel as he imagined. Slaves, Franklin argued, were better treated than the English working poor, who are, though not absolutely slaves, labored under worse conditions.

00:34:59.160 - 00:35:11.350

Where the abolitionist Sharp had argued that American slaveholding was sinful, Franklin maintained it to be no worse than class relationships in England. When the Englishman in Franklin's dialogue pointed out

00:35:11.350 - 00:35:24.480

the harsh colonial laws that caused slaves great suffering, the American replied that such laws are in fact necessary due to, quote, the ignorance and wickedness of slaves. Perhaps you may imagine the negroes to be a mild mannered,

00:35:24.480 - 00:35:35.280

mild tempered, tractable kind of people. Franklin's American concludes but the majority are of a plodding disposition, dark, sullen, malicious, revengeful, and cruel in the highest degree.

00:35:36.200 - 00:35:48.360

In other words, their very inferiority, Franklin argued, justified harsh laws to keep them enslaved. Franklin's American and the Englishman could agree that the slave trade was distasteful.

00:35:48.880 - 00:36:01.080

But here, as he had done in 1751, Franklin blamed the British Empire for bringing slaves to the Americas. As to the share England has in these enormities of America, he wrote, remember, sir, that she began the slave trade.

00:36:02.160 - 00:36:14.630

In this text, Franklin, as he did time and time again, condemned the slave trade, but fell far short from condemning the institution of slavery itself. Again, Franklin was unable to extricate himself completely

00:36:14.630 - 00:36:28.000

from slavery, and in so doing ended up defending it. By redirecting the conversation from slavery to the slave trade, Franklin was able to condemn a part of the institution without threatening his own slaveholding or that of his colonists.

00:36:29.280 - 00:36:39.560

By 1770, the enslaved population of British North America was self-replicating, meaning that unlike in the West Indies, mainland colonists had no need to import new slaves to maintain slavery.

00:36:40.160 - 00:36:53.080

In other words, opposing the slave trade in 1770 stood little risk of upsetting slavery as a whole. I do not intend these brief snapshots of Franklin's views on slavery and unfree labor to be complete.

00:36:53.560 - 00:37:03.900

He was a constantly inquisitive man whose views on many things, including slavery, continued to evolve over the course of his lifetime. Neither did I come here today to condemn or vilify Franklin for

00:37:03.900 - 00:37:17.120

his slave ownership and his sometimes apologist views. Rather, by returning him to his time and by recalling his experience with bound labour, I hope to urge us to remain vigilant and aware of the complex history of slavery and

00:37:17.120 - 00:37:27.240

its effect upon individuals famous for their own defense of freedom. In recent years we've grown much more comfortable in discussing the deep roots of slavery in our own country's history.

00:37:27.640 - 00:37:38.980

Maybe in six days we'll become more comfortable. And we have even come to recognise that many of our founding fathers were slave owners and more. One of the important developments in this regard was

00:37:38.980 - 00:37:50.970

biologist Eugene Foster's announcement in 1998 that he had tested Thomas Jefferson's descendants DNA by comparing it with several descendants of an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings, determined that Jefferson was likely the father

00:37:50.970 - 00:38:02.180

of some or all of Hemings' six children. This finding, combined with the work of historian Annette Gordon Reed, confirmed long told stories by the Hemingses that they were descendants of Jefferson and introduced

00:38:02.180 - 00:38:11.730

Americans to the complexity of one of the most famous of our founding fathers. Why it took a DNA test and scholarship showing that Jefferson had had a long standing sexual relationship

00:38:11.730 - 00:38:19.440

with one of his slaves, a woman who is in fact his deceased wife's half sister, to make us understand Jefferson as a slave owner is a topic for another day.

00:38:20.200 - 00:38:28.640

It did. Now, when tourists visit Monticello, the Hemmings family is often addressed explicitly on the tour, and it is a major topic of conversation.

00:38:29.400 - 00:38:41.140

The same thing is true at many other sites, like Colonial Williamsburg, where interpreting the lives of the enslaved population has become one of that museum's primary missions. While these interpretations are not always perfect, they do

00:38:41.140 - 00:38:50.910

reflect a greater understanding that slavery can no longer be ignored. That Jefferson held slaves and fathered slave children who he in turn enslaved does not diminish his accomplishment in

00:38:50.910 - 00:39:01.160

writing the Declaration of Independence or founding the University of Virginia. In the same way, Franklin's exploitation of bound labour and his defence of slavery should not diminish his own tremendous

00:39:01.160 - 00:39:11.520

achievements detailed so well in the exhibit downstairs. Instead, these men's entanglement with unfreedom should force us to understand that freedom and slavery have always been linked in American history.

00:39:11.800 - 00:39:28.980

One depended upon the other. The history of unfreedom is one that must be understood and explained, not simply explained away. Thank you very much. I'll be happy to answer any questions if

00:39:28.980 - 00:39:43.520

you have them. I don't know much about all this so I'm asking maybe a dumb question, but how did people get to be indentured servants? Did their passage get paid across the ocean?

00:39:43.720 - 00:39:52.900

Yes, they volunteered. They usually sold themselves to a broker in London or Bristol or wherever they came from in England. Their great hope, you know, most indentured servants are driven

00:39:52.900 - 00:40:04.290

by the hope for land, something that they're never going to be able to own in England. And thus a path to citizenship of some sort. But most, by the 18th century, are indentured servants out of

00:40:04.290 - 00:40:16.610

desperation. There's a sort of secondary subclass of indentured servants important Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. And those were redemptioners. Many people, well, sort of

00:40:16.610 - 00:40:29.700

fleeing what were the German Palatine principalities who were looking for opportunity in the Americas, especially as western Pennsylvania became opened up and many of those people sold

00:40:29.700 - 00:40:45.160

themselves specifically for land. But most indentured servants by the late 18th century are skilled artisans hoping to find a better world in the Americas. You were talking about large numbers of indentured servants and

00:40:45.160 - 00:40:54.200

apprentices running away. And in the case of Ben Franklin, he ran what I guess is a large distance then, but not so large now, and in short order was fairly well known.

00:40:54.480 - 00:41:02.800

So was there some sort of like, you know, period after which people didn't chase you down if you had run away and it was OK, and you could open up a legitimate business? Or how did that work?

00:41:02.920 - 00:41:15.680

Benjamin got lucky. His brother could not try to get him back because his brother had defied a court order to not print his paper by having his brother print it under his name.

00:41:16.160 - 00:41:29.480

And basically if he had admitted that Franklin, Benjamin, was not in fact free, which he was not, then he could have been punished for this ruse. So basically Josiah was stuck, but was mad.

00:41:29.480 - 00:41:39.240

He was mad at Benjamin pretty much the rest of his life. And Franklin's father was mad as well. What could other runaway apprentices do? They changed their names.

00:41:39.840 - 00:41:48.520

They went... I mean, I don't want to say it's easy, but if you're a skilled worker, it's hard for apprentices because they're young.

00:41:48.880 - 00:42:04.030

You can't be a master craftsman unless you seem old enough. So if you're relatively... And this is why Franklin is... People are suspicious of him, there just aren't sort of free 17 year old men of working age walking around, so that if they can pass

00:42:04.030 - 00:42:17.760

for older, that's exactly what they do. They, like many runaway slaves, they pass as freeman or as journeymen and just don't go back to the places they came from. But many were caught and sent back as well and had their

00:42:17.760 - 00:42:38.600

contracts lengthened and were punished and the like. You concluded by telling us that Franklin was writing primarily about the evils of the slave trade, which would have no impact because the trade was basically over by then anyway.

00:42:39.920 - 00:42:52.930

But then earlier you told us that he was the president of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society. So there's a gap. And what is your best guess in terms of when that transition

00:42:52.930 - 00:43:10.290

occurred from believing in slavery as something that, well, it's OK to exist, but it does have this negative impact on the slave holder and his children, to an abolitionist. I mean, I think the forces that came together are the forces

00:43:10.290 - 00:43:21.360

that came together at that same time to lead many slaveholding men by the 1780s and 90s that had been involved in the Revolution... to be certainly cynical about it, as Gary Nash is, it's very

00:43:21.360 - 00:43:31.800

easy to free slaves when you're about to die. When George Washington frees his slaves in his will, he's dead. He doesn't have to deal with it. He doesn't have to deal with the separation of people, of what

00:43:31.800 - 00:43:46.260

his wife is going to do, can't free her slaves himself. So I think many of those men's actions to free their slaves and their wills were in some ways borne out by guilt, by a realization that they had lived a life that depended upon others

00:43:46.260 - 00:44:01.020

as they put their wills together and think about death. The other thing, of course, that's going on is that the abolition movement really is beginning to work. That is, when Massachusetts frees slaves in its

00:44:01.020 - 00:44:09.880

state constitution just after they declare independence in 1776. and Connecticut does the same, there's not chaos, which is one of the things that people feared

00:44:09.880 - 00:44:19.010

most. Jefferson, of course, will fear, well, what are we going to do with all of these untrained, unintelligent, dependent people if we simply free them? And there

00:44:19.010 - 00:44:28.470

wasn't a problem in Massachusetts. So I think that helped as well, helped men like Franklin begin to realize. So I think he does change his mind for that sort of variety of

00:44:28.470 - 00:44:39.200

reasons. If somebody wanted to read some of those Pennsylvania gazettes that Franklin wrote, is there an easier way to get to them besides microfiche?

00:44:40.360 - 00:44:53.120

There is, but we don't have it. If you go to Hopkins or somewhere, there's a database called America's Historical Newspapers put together by the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, which has scanned

00:44:53.120 - 00:45:03.730

them all and that's where all those were taken from so that you can read them as PDF files. They weren't printed in books. You know, I think a bunch of some of the

00:45:03.730 - 00:45:18.460

Pennsylvania Gazette has been printed in various places. I think some of it's online somewhere, but just selected issues. And then Franklin's writings, of course, all his essays are the,

00:45:18.460 - 00:45:25.000

I don't know how many, 40 volumes, we have... The library has them. 39. Yeah, I think the library has stopped a few years ago.

00:45:25.000 - 00:45:32.320

Oh, OK. Well, we have a lot of them. Yes. Christian, I wanted to go back to something you said near the

00:45:32.320 - 00:45:42.350

end about kind of the memory of slavery and how we're trying to deal with that and kind of halting and sometimes successful ways. But as you implied, the attempt to deal with the idea of

00:45:42.350 - 00:45:56.220

America being built on unfreedom has only really happened in Southern states or what we see is kind of classic, you know, states of the former Confederacy. Maybe you could expand on that a little bit on why that is, why

00:45:56.220 - 00:46:08.280

that's been the attempt and then why it hasn't happened, you know, in in places like Philadelphia and Boston. I think it's about, in many ways, it's about collective memory. It's about the people that begin to write the history of

00:46:08.280 - 00:46:22.320

abolition movements, who begin during the abolition movement in the 1830s and 1840s in places like New England and the work of the Radical Republicans, those that are the abolitionists in the United States Senate during the Civil War.

00:46:23.160 - 00:46:35.080

Those people write a history which is self congratulatory about the work that they and their parents and their descendants, and they trace it back to Granville Sharp and George Whitfield and the English abolitionist movement

00:46:35.080 - 00:46:47.370

and claim that they've always been against slavery. So I think it's the sort of collective memory that there was abolition and gradual emancipation in northern states, in Pennsylvania and New York and north, so that somehow they

00:46:47.370 - 00:47:01.370

convinced themselves that they never had slavery. I think the other thing is that we often pull slavery out. So we look at Philadelphia's population and say, oh, there's only 6% in Pennsylvania's population, only 6% enslaved in

00:47:01.370 - 00:47:09.920

1750. So slavery couldn't have been a big deal. But it's not collapsed together with these other forms of unfree labour which are about exploitation, perhaps not to the

00:47:09.920 - 00:47:21.610

degree, but to tell that to an indentured servant who was beat often probably wouldn't have made much of a difference to him on. So I think it's about collective memory and about our not

00:47:21.610 - 00:47:35.750

picking out these ideas of multiple kinds of bound labour. And I guess saying that there's a third reason. And that's about our American exceptionalism, right, our understanding that somehow the United States is a place of

00:47:35.750 - 00:47:44.600

liberty rather than a place of slavery. And it's OK if it's somewhere else. I think it's also about where academic institutions were located in the 1880s.

00:47:44.880 - 00:47:52.520

You know, history gets written from Harvard and Princeton. Yeah. And there wasn't slavery there in recent memory like there was in South Carolina, in Georgia.

00:47:52.560 - 00:48:10.920

Any other questions? Well, thank you all very much for coming out on this blustery evening. This is our commercial moment.

00:48:12.600 - 00:48:30.830

And we are continuing to provide additional lectures and events related to Benjamin Franklin. Coming up this Saturday, Jack Fruchtman's going to be talking, doing a presentation at the Towson Public Library at...

00:48:30.830 - 00:48:41.740

Let me see, I think it's at 1:00. Oh, I see it. Thank you. 2:00 on Saturday, Franklin Speaks to our Time: Rights,

00:48:41.740 - 00:48:56.920

Liberty, and Elections. What a timely topic. So you could join Jack in the, I think it's the public Commons room in the lower level of Towson Public Library for that.

00:48:57.320 - 00:49:07.040

And if you'd like to see the rest of our events, you can pick up this brochure in the back of the room. Thanks a lot for coming and help yourself to refreshments. Thank you.