Human rights in the United States prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and black sites, and extrajudicial targeted killings (Disposition Matrix). Some observers give the U.S. high to fair marks on human rights, while others charge it with a persistent pattern of human rights violations. The first human rights organization in the Thirteen Colonies of British America, dedicated to the abolition of slavery, was formed by Anthony Benezet in 1775. A year later, the Declaration of Independence announced that the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. The Declaration stated "that all men are created equal, that they are
United States Declaration of Independence declaration also influenced the Russian Empire. The document had a particular impact on the Decembrist revolt and other Russian thinkers. According to historian David Armitage, the Declaration of Independence did prove to be internationally influential, but not as a statement of human rights. Armitage argued that the Declaration was the first in a new genre of declarations of independence that announced the creation of new states. Other French leaders were directly influenced by the text of the Declaration of Independence itself. The "Manifesto of the Province of Flanders" (1790) was the first foreign derivation of the Declaration; others include the