Manuel Jala

In 1709, Manuel Jala, a free Afro-Campechano sailor, was kidnapped and sold into slavery across Spanish, English, and French territories. His captora British naval officerinsisted Jala was a slave by nature of his skin color. But Jala had a remarkable ally: Judge Samuel Sewall, author of The Selling of Joseph, the first printed tract in North America to denounce both slavery and the slave trade.