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As seen on HGTV
The Salem Witch Trial House Season 2, Episode 8
Find it on Discovery+
History of Slavery in Massachusetts
In an effort to build more historically inclusive tours, I've been busy researching much of the often intentionally-avoided history of slavery in the state. I want to share with you what I've found.
Click around (on the yellow text) to discover more.
I'll be continuing to update this as I learn more.
1637
July 13
First record of enslaved Natives in New England.
Capt. William Pierce, in the Salem ship Desire, set sail with 17 captured Native Americans to sell into slavery in the West Indies.
Feb
1638
FEB 26
First record of enslaved Africans in New England.
Seven months later, Capt. Pierce returned from Providence to Boston with "cotton, tobacco and negroes etc".
1644
Start of the African Trade
"The year 1644 was a momentous date in the history of the New England slave trade. Before that time, Massachusetts merchants had occasionally brought in Negroes from the West Indies, but in that year Boston traders attempted to import slaves directly from Africa, when an association of businessmen sent three ships there for gold dust and Negroes."
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1674
The Royal African Company is granted a monopoly on the slave trade.
Read the original
1687
1696
The Royal African Company loses their monopoly on the slave trade.
1700
As the Century Turns
"Although New England's share in the slave trade was small in the seventeenth century, her merchants had by 1700 laid the foundations of a lucrative commerce. They had already begun the triangular slave voyages and had learned that the West Indies offered the best market for Negroes. As comparatively few Negroes were brought to New England in the seventeenth century, the traders in these colonies made their profits as carriers rather than as exploiters of Negro labor."
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1731
As the Century Turns
Britain orders its Colony of Massachusetts to not tax or discourage the importing or exporting of enslaved Africans.
Slave Trading Lawmakers and Influencers
1773 - 1777
Liberty and Freedom for All?
Revolutionary talk was heard by enslaved Africans who used the same language to legally petition for their own freedom multiple times:
The Petition of a Great Number of Blacks of detained in a state of slavery in the Bowels of a free and Christian Country apprehend they have in common with all other men...
"...a natural right to be free..." June 1773
All failed.
1778
"drafted by the legislature" (without public comment)
The public rejected it.
Mass. Constitution v.1
1780
For round 2, Massachusetts selects John Adams to write their Constitution. He finishes in 2 months:
His version has a Declaration of Rights.
(this is a game changer)
Mass. Constitution v.2
Elizabeth Freeman
Elizabeth Freeman was born 'Mumbet', an enslaved woman owned by Col. John Ashley in this house in Sheffield, MA.
With help from a local lawyer, she sued for her freedom using the Declaration of Rights from the new Massachusetts Constitution.
She won.
Shortly after changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman.
"Any time, any time while I was a slave, if one minute's freedom had been offered to me, and I had been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it - just to stand one minute on God's earth a free woman -I would."
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