42 JUNE 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL withdrawing. Again, Hilton obfuscated an important point— namely, that Laurens was equating human beings with property in a founding document of the United States. A more forthright description of what occurred is provided by David McCullough in his biography John Adams (2001): “Laurens’s one contribution to the proceedings was to provide a line to prevent the British army from ‘carrying away any Negroes or other property’ when withdrawing from America. Oswald, who had done business with Laurens in former years, when they were both in the slave trade, readily agreed.” The Laurens amendment protecting the interests of slave owners became a point of contention between the British and Americans almost immediately upon the signing of the Preliminary Treaty of Paris on Jan. 20, 1783. At that time, the remaining British troops under General Sir Guy Carleton had retreated to New York along with 3,000 liberated slaves. During the Revolutionary War, the British had offered freedom to any enslaved person, male or female, who deserted a rebel owner and crossed into British-held territory. Thousands did so, including those of prominent patriots George Washington, James Madison, and Patrick Henry. “Prophets and Rebels” When General Carleton met with General Washington in May 1783 to discuss the terms of the British withdrawal from America, the first item on Washington’s agenda was “the preservation of Property from being carried off, and especially the Negroes.” According to Adam Hochschild’s account in his book Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (2005), Washington was infuriated to learn that some had already embarked and insisted that the remaining be turned over in accordance with the terms of the peace treaty. Carleton refused, contending that the liberated slaves were not property covered by the treaty because of the earlier British proclamation giving them freedom, but he conceded that slave owners might eventually be compensated for their losses. Southern slave owners, encouraged by the Laurens provision, descended on New York in gangs to recapture their human property. Terror and violence ensued, forcing Carleton to evacuate the former enslaved to the nearest British territory, which was Nova Scotia. However, Nova Scotia proved inhospitable, and in 1792 most of them sailed back to Africa with the support of the British antislavery movement and government where they settled Freetown, the capital of presentday Sierra Leone. The issue of compensation for human beings as property sparked by Laurens lasted for decades with strong resistance from Britain where the antislavery movement was strong. The matter was not resolved until arbitrated by the tsar of Russia in 1826, with the British agreeing to pay American slave owners or their heirs half the market value of their former slaves. This unfinished painting by Benjamin West depicts (from left) John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin at the signing of the Treaty of Paris, 1783. ALBUM/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO Laurens and his associates published this newspaper advertisement for the sale of enslaved people at Ashley Ferry outside Charleston, South Carolina, on April 26, 1760. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
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