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African Americans 和 the End of Slavery in Massachusetts

The Lives of Individual African Americans in Massachusetts after the End of Slavery

"...哈特福德特纳 & 黛娜·奈德，自由的黑人，嫁给了珍妮. 今年由我来过."
——塞缪尔·斯蒂尔曼，1784年4月8日

 

Individuals who were formerly enslaved in Massachusetts continued to live in an inferior social position, 他们在法律上是自由的，但民权比白人少. They were treated equally by the legal system, but they could not serve on juries. 他们纳税, 但不能投票, 和, 在大多数情况下, 他们的孩子没有上过公立学校, 至少被习俗和传统所禁止, 如果法律不允许. 找工作很困难. 家政服务仍然是一个可行的职业, along with common labor 和 the professions associated with the sea. 然而, fear of kidnapping (和 a forced return to enslavement elsewhere) was a bar to working on the waterfront or at sea. Indentured servitude also remained in force after the abolition of slavery, 和 African American children such as Dick Morey were commonly indentured out until they reached the age of 21. Free Black people in the north were continually organizing their communities in hopes of winning freedom for enslaved people elsewhere, 和 for bringing the benefits of full citizenship to all Black people. They built community associations that provided mutual support 和 a foundation for 政治 action, 比如波士顿的非洲协会, 以及非洲共济会.

Indenture between David Stoddard Greenough 和 Dick Morey, 由罗克斯伯里的议员见证, 1786年9月6日
 Bill of sale from John Mory to David Stoddard Greenough for Dick (an enslaved person), 30 July 1785

霍尔王子

霍尔王子 was one of the most prominent free Black citizens of Boston during 和 after the Revolution. 出生于1735年左右, 来历不明的, 他被波士顿的威廉·霍尔奴役, who manumitted him in 1770 shortly after the Boston Massacre. 普林斯·霍尔是一名制革师和餐饮承办人, 和 was the Gr和 Master of the African Lodge in Boston. 另一个促进社会的机构, 政治, 和 economic improvement for African Americans was the African Society formed in Boston in 1796. Although 霍尔王子 apparently was not a founding member of the African Society, the group did share a number of members with the African Lodge.

霍尔王子 worked tirelessly for the abolition of slavery, for a legal end to the domestic sale of enslaved people in Massachusetts, 和 for free public education for the children of Black taxpayers in Boston. A group of Black Masons led by 霍尔王子 petitioned the General Court in February of 1788 to put an end to the sale 和 trade of enslaved people, a petition prompted by the abduction of three free Black men in Boston Harbor, who were lured aboard a vessel 和 subsequently taken to the West Indies to be enslaved. 作为请愿的结果, along with one put forth by the Quakers 和 one by the Boston clergy, the General Court passed an act on 26 March 1788 "to prevent the Slave Trade, 和 for granting Relief to the Families of such unhappy Persons as may be Kidnapped or decoyed away from this Commonwealth" (Kaplan p. 210). 霍尔王子于1807年在波士顿去世.

Laws of the African Society, Instituted at Boston, Anno Domini 1796
非洲协会 Petition of 霍尔王子 to the Massachusetts General Court, 27 February 1788

玛丽·哈特福德

The remarkable collection of the papers of the ancestors of 玛丽·哈特福德, a "colored woman who lived in the Belknap family from a child," documents the lives of free Black people after the Revolution. The manuscripts all relate in some way to ancestors of 玛丽·哈特福德, 谁可能是1792年出生的, 1872年去世. 哈特福德, 是谁把文件保存到她死的时候, 总是说那是她父亲的, 他的名字是哈特福德, but whose surname may have changed frequently depending upon the name of his employer, 这在非裔美国人中很常见, 要么被奴役，要么自由. 因此, 哈特福德这个名字出现的频率:哈特福德·特纳, 哈特福德罗宾斯, 哈特福德罗伯茨, 和 哈特福德 Broom; 和 a woman named Dinah: Dinah Keeth, 黛娜凿, 黛娜·罗伯茨, 和黛娜·哈特福德. The collection highlights the difficulty of positively identifying individual members of early African American families, 特别是因为名字的问题, 以及现存记录的匮乏.

玛丽哈特福德报纸

 

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