The Story Within the Story: Hypocrisy of Northern Slavery Revealed

Newspaper clipping from a 1786 issue of the Vermont Gazette

Today the Drudge Report linked to a story published in the Burlington Free Press. The headline reads "
Christine Hallquist is the first transgender nominee. Here are 6 times Vermont was a social frontrunner"

The obvious focal point the reader is drawn to is the news that Christine Hallquist is the first transgender political nominee in the history of the nation but it's something buried within the story that got my attention. It reads:

"1777: Vermont leads colonies in abolishing adult slavery" which provides the following information:

"Before it was a state in the union, Vermont was the first of the colonial territories to abolish adult slavery. While this didn't always translate into actual practice, it was written into the state's constitution adopted the same year. Some historians have said that the slavery section of Vermont's constitution had loopholes since it didn't apply to children. Vermont officially became a state in 1791"

Here lies the real story about Vermont and slavery. Within the provided text it is revealed the magnanimous act of Vermont in abolishing slavery there was a loophole in which certain cases owners were allowed to keep their slaves.

When one clicks on the link provided within the text it is learned that:

"Vermont was the first of the former British colonies to ban slavery — it was part of the state's constitution adopted in 1777 — but in reality some wealthy landowners continued to own slaves into the 1800s."

Within this text

"The legal reality of abolishing slavery did not always reflect social reality," Harvey Amani Whitfield, associate professor of history at the University of Vermont here, writes in a newly published monograph. "The end of Vermont slavery was contested, contingent, complicated and messy.

Vermont made steps toward abolition, but slaveholding, kidnapping of free blacks, and child slavery continued until the early 19th century," he wrote. "Those who continued to own slaves were among the most respectable inhabitants of the state."