Oath of a Free-Man
Oath of a Free-Man,legal formulary of Massachusetts probably first drafted in 1631, revised (1634) to include a statement of the freeman's obligation, again revised (c. 1648) as the Freemans Oath, fitted to the status of one “now to be made free” instead of one already an “Inhabitant, and Freeman,” and finally revised (1664) to include an oath of allegiance to the Crown, lacking in the previous forms. The 1634 version was probably the one employed for Stephen Daye's broadside (1639), the first piece of printing in what is now the United States. No copy of Daye's printed form exists, but its text is known through John Child's pamphlet New Englands Jonas cast up at London (1647).
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