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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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The slave John Jack died in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1773 but in 1796, more than 20 years after his death, his epitaph appeared in the a Greenfield, Massachusetts, newspaper. Why might this be? The turn of the 18th into the 19th century was a time of social reform when some were rethinking whether the promises of the American Revolution- especially liberty and equality for all, had been realized. The epitaph's emphasis on slaves and kings being on an equal plane in the eyes of God must have had renewed resonance.

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