William Lynch Speech

The William Lynch Speech, also referred to as the William Lynch Letter or either the Willie Lynch Speech or Willie Lynch Letter, was a speech alleged to have been given to an audience on the bank of the James River in Virginia in 1712 to discuss control of slaves within the colony. The speaker, William Lynch, was supposed to have been a slaveowner in the West Indies, summoned to Virginia in 1712; in part due to several slave seditions in the area prior to his visit, and his alleged reputation of being an authoritarian and strict slaveowner. No provenance for the speech has ever been supplied, and the text as given below contains numerous anachronisms ("self-refueling", for example, since the word refueling dates only to the early twentieth century, or "fool proof" a word not attested until the early twentieth century). The themes covered in the text do not appear to coincide with any of the known concerns of plantation owners in the early eighteenth century.

Related Topics:
William Lynch Speech - James River - Virginia - 1712 - Slaves - Slaveowner - West Indies - Eighteenth century

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It seems most likely that the text is a forgery concocted in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

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