(ECONOMICS) The History of White Negroes

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(ECONOMICS.) "The History of White Negroes," as published in the New-Haven Gazette, and the Connecticut Magazine," Volume I, No. 9. Pages [65]-72. 4to, 9 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches, disbound; moderate foxing. New Haven, CT: Meigs & Dana, 13 April 1786

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This deadpan satirical piece notes the discovery of a "race of negroes in the middlemost parts of Africa who are as white as snow," and posits the evolution in the other direction of white laborers being transformed into negroes by large-scale economic forces. The descent of the white laborer into slavery had long been blamed on the oppressive policies of Great Britain. The continuance of this process under American liberty is thus ascribed by the author to the "design of natures." His satire seems to implicate public debt and high taxation for the degradation of free labor.

This essay is credited to "Lycurgus," which was the pen name of the Gazette's editor Josiah Meigs; he wrote other satirical pieces under this name. This is the essay's first and possibly only appearance in print. It is discussed at length in Jared Gardner's "Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787-1845," pages 15-17.