News of the Somerset Case traveled to slaves and spurred mass flight attempts

Evidence

British administrators and Virginia slaves had been well aware of one another throughout the eighteenth century. As the Revolution approached it became increasingly evident to the slaves that the British were white men with a significantly different view of slavery than their masters. Rumors of the Somerset Case, for example, encouraged slaves from even the most remote areas to run away and attempt to secure passage to England. (News of Lord Mansfield’s decision, that in effect set free all Negroes brought to England as slaves, reached the colony by the summer 1772.) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1996

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the slave-revolt and resistance chapters elsewhere in this book where information networks among the enslaved matter.