HANCOCK JOHN Autograph Letter Signed JH as Governor to Gover

Sale 2628 - Lot 13

Price Realized: $ 4,000

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 2,000

RESPONDING TO SC GOVERNOR'S DEMAND FOR RETURN OF ESCAPED SLAVES HANCOCK, JOHN. Autograph Letter Signed, "JH," as Governor, to Governor of SC Benjamin Guerard, sending a report [not present] from the SC general court concerning a group of "negroes." 1 page, small 4to; faint scattered foxing, horizontal folds. Boston, 30 March 1784

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"The Letter you did me the Honor to address to me I laid before the General Court at their first Session after the Receipt of it. And in compliance with their Request I inclose you the whole of the Transactions respecting the negroes mention'd in your Letter, which upon perusal I flatter myself will be Satisfactory."
In August of 1783, Percival and Anthony Pawley engaged an attorney to recover a group of 10 enslaved people who had escaped to Boston, where slavery had recently been abolished. On October 6, 1783, SC Governor Guerard wrote a letter to MA Governor Hancock demanding restitution for the damages caused by MA's harboring of the slaves and demanding their return. Chief Justice of the MA Supreme Judicial Court, William Cushing, explained to Hancock that nothing undertaken by the authorities in MA violated the Articles of Confederation nor attacked the sovereignty of SC, which information was likely conveyed in the enclosure that accompanied the present letter to Guerard. Hancock did nothing to locate the "negroes," and without any guarantees of protection from MA, no one from SC pursued them.