Great Grievance: Benjamin Franklin and Anti-Convict Sentiment

Abstract

Perhaps the best known argument that the early American colonies despised convict labour was the Rattlesnake newspaper article penned by Benjamin Franklin. And yet, was there actually a wide-spread anti-convict sentiment? Or was Franklin a lone voice railing against perceived British insults? Framed around the claims made by Franklin, this article is an investigation of primary evidence from the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, in an attempt to better contextualize Franklins writing against colonial law and other colonial writers and correct the prevailing historical narrative that there was an anti-convict movement.