January, 1777

Dear Continental congress:

“If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl?”- Isabel Gardener, Chains. Freedom. It’s the fleeting thing that everybody desires. Even when some disagree with this and take theirs for granted, as soon as it is snatched away they do everything in their power to get it back. Your nation recently fought an entire war to gain your freedom and you have been freed because of a victory-however, you refuse to free those who are enslaved. My name is Cassie Woodchuck, I am an enslaved African American, and I believe that I deserve freedom as much as anybody else because I have fought for this country as much as any free man and the very constitution that you built this country on states I should be free.

I deserve freedom because I am simply doing the very thing our country did. You say that it is foolish and insolent for me to wish for freedom and rebel against my “master”, and yet you did this very thing when you rebelled against Britain. If your entire country can rebel and seize its freedom, why not I? Furthermore, you have had help and assistance from many other countries during this time, whereas I have been on my own. If I, pursuing the same goal as you, am struggling to reach it and am alone in my quest, should you not help me? Instead, you turn out to be the very one I am having to beg for freedom from.

Those who enslave me (you included) always claim I am an inferior and therefore do not deserve freedom. However, the pamphlet Common Sense, which you wrote, states “how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest…, is worth enquiring into…” therefore, in your own pamphlet you say how twisted it is that one race of man should be born different or inferior to another kind. Why then do you call people like me with skin a few shades darker than yours inferior and enslave us with clean consciousness? Surely you must realize how wrong this is.

The poet Phillis Wheatley (who, like me, is an African American.) is a very talented poet who has written hundreds of poems, in which one she states “ such, such is my case. And can I then but pray, others may never feel tyrannic sway?” By this she means that, now that America is liberated, she hopes that no others have to feel the pain that was inflicted upon her. The pain that you inflicted upon her by stealing her away from her family, her, the very person who used poetry skills to assist you during this long war. Do you not feel any remorse over this? Now is your chance to fix your mistake! And furthermore, does not her ingenuity as a poet destroy your claim that those with black skin have inferior intelligence?

Finally, in your Declaration of Independence (the very document you wrote to seize your freedom, in which you plan to build America) it states “we hold these truths to be self-evident, That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” In your very own declaration it states that all (including myself) are created equal, and among my rights are Liberty. Are you really going to hold that away from me? To deny the Declaration, which you have just made and are already breaking? I beg you, do not do this thing.

In Conclusion, I believe that I deserve freedom as much as any of you because I have fought for my freedom just as you as a country have, and since even in your Pamphlet and Declaration you state that all should be free. I sincerely hope you will read this letter and realize that my claims are valid, and will free me. Perhaps some day you will take the next step and free all, regardless of race, color, or age.

Sincerely,

Cassie Woodchuck