Patricia Bradley

The Boston Gazette and Slavery as Revolutionary Propaganda

Boston Gazette content in the six years prior to the Declaration of Independence revealed the slavery issue was used to unite patriot fervor under a proslavery position. Specifically, the Gazette misguided readers regarding the 1772 decision in which the American slave James Somerset was freed by a British court, chose not to reflect the debate on slavery under way in other colonial newspapers, selected items that promoted Southern patriarchy, and appropriated the word “slavery” as a metaphor representing colonial America vis-à-vis Great Britain. The author concludes such use was deliberate as part of the propagandistic mission of the Gazette.