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"Wants A Place" ad in the Greenfield Gazette newspaper

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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To be "bound out" meant to be apprenticed. This ad from the Greenfield Gazette appeared at a time when slavery had not been officially abolished in Massachusetts, but it was slowly dying out, as it was considered to be inconsistent with the tenets of the state's constitution. The two African American boys mentioned in the ad were free in a sense, but white authorities bound them out to serve as apprentices to a master for a set term of years.

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