The Sheffield Declaration, also known as the Sheffield Resolves, was a

Colonial America The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the late 15th century until the unifying of the Thirteen British Colonies and creation of the United States in 1776, during the Re ...

n petition against British policies and manifesto for individual rights, drawn up as a series of resolves approved by the Town of Sheffield, Massachusetts, on January 12, 1773 and printed in ''The Massachusetts Spy, Or, Thomas's Boston Journal'' on February 18, 1773. The meeting took place in the Colonel John Ashley House, a property listed in the

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in Ashley Falls, a neighborhood of Sheffield, Massachusetts. The resolves were debated and approved by a committee of eleven local citizens: Deacon Silas Kellogg , Col. John Ashley (committee moderator), Dr. Lemuel Bernard, Aaron Root, Major John Fellows, Philip Callender, Capt. William Day, Deacon Ebenezer Smith, Capt. Nathaniel Austin, Capt. Stephen Dewey, and

Theodore Sedgwick Theodore Sedgwick (May 9, 1746January 24, 1813) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served in elected state government and as a delegate to the Continental Congress, a U.S. representative, and a senator from Massachusetts. H ...

, who wrote the text.James M. Banner, Jr. "Sedgwick, Theodore"; ''

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'', February 2000. The Declaration's first resolution was that "Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property," These words are echoed in the most famous line of Thomas Jefferson's

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...

three years later: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

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