Lives, native lands, native worlds. The Hingham Historical Society and the abigel adams Historic Society cohosted this event. Welcome to the hingham heritage museum. My name is degreiedra harrison. What a treat to welcome you all here tonight in the solid out program. Id like to thank on above of our board of directors and our small staff, id like to thank you all for making us a part of our week. And Jarod Hardesty for being with us and cspan for filming us to see it at a later date. And thank you to the abigel adams Historic Society and their wonderful board of directors who offered this opportunity to partner with them. Abigels rich history in this region excites us every day. To understand all voices, we currently are in the midst of a campaign for the Benjamin Lincoln house which is our effort to purchase the home of hinghams American Revolutionary war hero at 181 north street. Benjamin lincoln received the british sword of surrender at new yo yorktown, or as he like to tell our visiting school children, thats Benjamin Lincoln on the white boards, featured so prominently in the rotunda of the u. S. Capitol. Benjamin lincoln also served hingham as a clerk, constable and selectman. He also came from a family that owned slaves. And two blocks from here there is a slave quarter in the attic of the Benjamin Lincoln home. Our next major exhibit here at the museum generates out of the archeological finds from the dbtas artifacts, a colonial buckle, a fishing weight and a weight tell many stories but the amazing story of the tribe for which the commonwealth gets its name, the massachusetts. Were privileged to work with the massachusetts tribe, a member of whom is here with us tonight to work on this exhibit, to be sure for the first time in the hangham Historical Society history, we present the voices correctly. But how do we do this . How do we tell the story of slavery . How do we tell the story of our native peoples well and correctly . And we do it together. And its a joy to be here tonight with all of you. All voices at the table. And thank you for coming to tonights program. Id like to introduce michelle conklan, head of the board at the abigel society who will introduce our speaker. Thanks for coming tonight. [ applause ] i want to echo diedra in saying thank you for coming tonight. And partnering with us on a program where were so happy to do this. Before i get into the introduction, i just want to tell you about another program you that might find of interest, on saturday, march 28th, from 9 00 to 1 00 in plymouth at the spire center in the back roads of the south shore which is a consortium of local historical associations of which the hamm Historical Society and abigel are apart. We have so many exciting anniversaries this year in massachusetts, the symposium this year will be focusing on the anniversaries, such as obviously, the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the may flower. The 100th anniversary of womens suffrage. And the trial, the subject of the keynote. So, more information is available on our website which is brss. Org. So, as diedra said im a member of the board of the Abigail Adams Historical Society. Built in 1685, its in weymouth, and its where Abigail Smith was born in 1744 and until they married john adams in 1764. This is a place where her character and ideals were formed. So its very important to her. So were an allvolunteer organization, and we try and continue her spirit by offering educational programs. We also offer seasonal tours and private tours. And if youd like more information, please check out our website at Abigail Adams birth place. Org. When i first joined the Abigail Adams birth place board a few years ago, despite knowing how prevalent slavery was in early new england, i was still shocked to discover that there were slaves in the home where Abigail Adams grew up. Her antislavery sentiments are wellknown. But her father reverend William Smith had at least four slaves, cato, tom, tower and phoebe. And these individuals were important to Abigail Adams early life. We try to commemorate them and honoring their memory by researching their lives, incorporating them into our tours and offering a program on early new england slavery every year. So, this year, were very pleased to have Jarod Hardesty speak to us. I wanted jarrod to speak to us since the first book came out, freedom in 18th century boston and this year the stars have arrived. Jared is an associate professor and is the author of black lives native lands, white worlds, history of slavery in new england. Id welcome you to give jared a warm welcome. [ applause ] good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming, thank you to diedra and everyone here. This place is really swanky. Really nice. Also to the board of the Abigail Adams historic birth place. I was told to say slash birth place. Its a great honor to be here. Certainly, thanks to the audience here tonight as well. This is now the seventh book talk ive given in new england about this particular book. And almost every one of them sold out. Thats heartening as an author, but its also heartening as someone who care about the subject and wants this information out there aasen educator as well. Its my great honor to talk about black lives, native lands and white worlds in new england. This is the first book about slavery in new england in nearly 80 years. The last book was Lorenzo Johnston greens. Its usually part of larger history, slavery in the united states, slavery in the american north and im guilty of that in my first book. This is a general overview meant for kind of the reading public. This evening, i want to discuss the purpose of writing this book. Or in other words, why i think we need this book in this moment. And then give you a brief overview of its context. In doing so, ill talk about the history of slavery until n rry england. I envision this book as a conversation, or, rather, me narrating a conversation thats been going on for about the past 25 years. And you see about four different conversations going on in that time period. The first, theres been a massive outpouring of academic scholarship, books, journals, articles, things like on slavery. Most of that is hyper specialized focusing on particular places, moments, themes or sources. These works as excellent as they are, sometimes make it difficult to see the bigger picture. And also, theyre sometimes inaccessible both because of the way academics write and because of pay walls that are very expensive to get access to. The second conversation is that or coming into this conversation are the libraries, archives and historical societies across new england who have identified that they own collections related to slavery. And made them widely accessible by our live publishing. Tradition print publishing. But also, sometimes, something as simple as when these libraries digitize these catalogs, providing subject heading into slavery. Make these sources much easier to identify and much more accessib accessible. The third, add to that, a historical reckoning with slavery by leading institutions across new england. Brown universitys report on slavery injustice. Now, that reckoning which started back in 2003 with brown has extended to Historic Sites large and small, as we hear tonight. Other universities and local and state governments have all begun to dig into their own past and relationship with slavery. But finally, the final piece of this is the work of community activists. Of public historians, local historians, independent researchers who have uncovered an incredible amount of source material on slavery and publicized it in the most radically accessible way in blogs and things like that. And this forces us all to acknowledge the regions history in connection to slavery. So, we have all of these different conversations that have been going on for about the past generation. Many different people talking to each other, with each it, past each other oftentimes, about the history of slavery in new england. The memory of that history and the politics of that memory. In the book i try to begin together these conversations and use them to narrate a new, more comprehensive, yet accessible history of new england slavery. In short, i stand on the shoulders of people who have been in the trenches doing this work for the past 25 years. In that sense, i view the book not only as an end, it sin th synthesizes 25 years of scholarship. It presents a set of facts, a framework and starting point for future conversations. So, how do i narrate these conversations, these foreconversations that we see come together. I discuss the lives of enslaved africans and Indigenous People in new england. How their colonization were two processes to transform new england into places best served the white population, especially the most elite settlers. All three of those are tall orders in and of themselves. But to do that in about 60,000 words, the editor told me no more than 60,000 words, thats about 170, 150, to 175 pages, if youre wondering. Thats not much at all. And to make it approachable to the reading public. These were no small tasks. Short length, make sure its readable. Indeed, the hardest part about writing the book was actually not what to research and write. I had 25 years of sources from academics, researchers and activists. But rather, how, how to create a book that is short, yet comprehensive. Comprehensive, yet readable. Readable, yet sensitive to the subject matter. And now that the book is published and many of you bought copies, i really hope i pulled off. The book is both a chronological and topical narrative that opens with the colonization of new england in the 1620s and 1630s. And it ends in the early 19th century with the process of i n emancipation. I look at slavery in other parts of the americas. I look at the skeconnection of slavery in the region. And finally, i look at how those two types of connections, connections to other slarch societies, connections to the development of new england, how those two connections shaped the lives of enslaved people. And now enslaved people shape those connections. Its a tall order. But nevertheless, the book opens by examining the connection between slavery and colonization. Anybody thats familiar with the history of slavery in new england. Theres kind of a mythical moment. Kind of narrated, the beginning of slavery. 1638, the ship sailed into boston harbor, and recorded the cargo on board the desire. There was sugar, there was salt and he also listed african captives. 1638, this was the starting date. Over the past 15 years or so, historians have begun to challenge that as a foundational moment in the history of slavery in new england. Had done that in two ways, obviously, there are unslaved africans before before 1638. We have direct testimony from the early 1600s of enslaved africans. Where the book has gone since and where my book tries to develop this is not only studying the desire when it came back from new england. But the desire when it left. The desire was based out of boston. And historians began looking into what did the desire ship to west indies to purchase the salt and sugar and the african captives . And in the hold of the desire were a number of pequat captives there were a number of people that went against the piccot people. Many were enslaved locally in new england towns. We know a couple hundred at least were sold out of the colony. So, theyre sold out of new england to the west indies where theyre exchanged for african captives. We see here the direct connection between slavery and colonization. Slavery served a dual purpose. First, it served the purpose of removing Indigenous People from their land. What better way to remove people than to permanently tear them away, sell them away from their homeland. This allowed for rapid expansion of the new england colonies, due to immigrants, high reproduction rates, they quickly expand into the interior and that creates labor shortages especially in the major port towns, boston, salem, places like that. And they need labor. So they use african slave labor to supplement the labor force as a whole. So, you see the process of exchanging native captives for african captives. And thats the foundation of slavery in new england, beginning in the 1630s. And that process is going to continue indian captives, african captives, through the 1670s. As this cycle suggests, central to it was new englands connection to the west indies. Especially the growing plantation economies there. The english settled the west indies about the same time they settled new england. 1620s. They arrived in barbados, leeward islands. Very quickly, these islands are completely colonized and turned over to sugar consult that vasion. Almost the entire island, stripped of forest. And every single piece of land is planted with sugar cane and they use enslaved africans to work those sugar cane plantations. These islands because theyve been completely stripped of their forest, theyre only growing sugar cane, they need food. They need provisions for that enslaved labor force. They need supplies like timber for burning and building. They need live stock for food and labor. And they turn to new england. As early as the 1630s, you see new englanders selling the provisions to the west indies. Its used to fuel the plantation complex there. And in exchange, new englanders receive sugar and molasses and things like enslaved africans. It forms a symbiotic relationship between west indies and antigua and later jamaica. Its a symbiotic relationship that extends beyond the economics. Its very much economic. But theres a considerable amount of Cultural Exchange as well. So, some of the earliest graduates of harvard, for example, were the sons of west indies planters. Theres extensive intermarriage between elite merchant families in new england and planter families in the west indies, further solidifying the economic ties. And the new england colonies begin borrowing from the slave societies in the caribbean to create their own systems of slavery here. So, for example, massachusetts borrowed slave law and customs governing slavery directly from barbados. And most enslaved people who arrived in the region, africans, actually spent time in the west indies before they arrived here. Stiles, they were born there. Sometimes, they spent a couple months after arriving on a slave ship but they spent a considerable amount of time in the caribbean. Using this caribbean connection as a starting point, my book turns into the way that they arrived in new england. All told, 20,000 enslaved ed africans arrived. They came to comprise 4 of the population. Is this another place where you have to kind of stop and question the way the history of slavery in new england has been written. One of the ways historians have pushed back and others has pushed back against the importance, those demographic numbers, oh, its only 4 of the population, how important could that be . Well, theres two answers that the book takes on. The first is when you look at specific regions, the slave population is significantly higher. Boston is about 12 to 15 enslaved. Newport, rhode island, about 25 enslaved. Urban areas large enslaved populations. Its not just the urban areas. This is the mistake i made in my first book saying, oh, it didnt matter for new england as a whole but it really mattered for boston. Researching this book actually reveals theres significant enslaved populations in other areas. Deerfield, massachusetts, had a population of 550 people, 50 of them were enslaved. A county in rhode island, south county, home to large Slave Holdings. Families who owned thousands of acres of grasslands and they had vast herds of cattle on them, they owned large enslaved labor forces, mostly women, who would then process the Dairy Products from the cattle to ship all over the place, but mostly to the west indies. So, you see Slave Holdings in the south county, rhode island, 40, 50, 60 enslaved people. Were talking about rivaling plantations in places like virginia, highly localized but a significant slave holding that belies that kind of 4 . The other piece of this, though, the other way i kind of push back is going back to that caribbean connection. While there were not large number of enslaved people in new england per se, the entire economy resolved around what historians called the business of slavery. The selling of provisions to the plantations. The transportation of enslaved people throughout the americas, but also the transatlantic slave trade. Ill come back to that in a second. The entire economy revolved around enslavement. A historic of new england by the name of Mark Petersen just published this giant book on boston. And i think he phrased it pretty well when he said boston was an enslaved society where most of the enslaved people lives elsewhere. And thats what we could say for new england as a whole. So, the demographics, i push back against getting caught up in the demographics for these reasons i just explained. But also the way in which you see white new englanders eagerly embrace slave trading by the early 19th century. From african, but in the americas as a form of commerce. Rhode island, the colony of rhode island became the center of slave trading in all of british america. You take all of the slave voyages from the colonial period from all of the colonies that became the united states, and you added them up, they would not equal those of rhode island. Rhode island is by far the center of the british north american slave trade, it actually rivals those of the west indies as well. So, its an extensive slave trade, central to the economy of the colony. So, thats how i set up the Second Chapter is pushing up against the demographic facts to talk about the ways in which enslaved people arrived in new england. And pushed back against some of those narratives. But most important for that chapter, chapter 2, to keep the bulk of it to exploring the lives of five individuals trafficked into new england. And their stories and experiences of arriving in the region and being enslaved. I want to read a short passage from the book about one of these men. Some of you might be familiar with. Standing on the gallos, on the town common in cambridge, massachusetts, 1765, mark negro man who belonged to the captain of charleston delivered a speech to the large crowd awaiting his execution. Sentenced to hang and have his dead body being put on display for killing his late master, mark offered repentance. According to his confession, mark was born into slavery in barbados, sometimes in the year 1725. He was sold away from the i would as a young boy, probably around the age of 8 when he could be put to work. When he arrived in boston he was sold to a succession of masters. One, a brass worker who warned him to read and educated him as tendererly, salter must not have been kind he sold him to another master who sold him to john cogman. Cogman put mark to work. Mark then toiled as an iron worker in boston and charleston, until he finally grew tired of cogmans abuse and murdered him. Marks story helps to illustrate an important trend in new england slavery that is easy to overlook when we discuss the slave trade to the region. Many enslaved people that arrived in new england were actually born in the west indies. And trafficked up here as children many times. And so theyre natives of the caribbean. It shows that depth of the caribbean connection. This is why its so important to delve into these individual lives because it helps to prevent us from kind of stereotyping, oh, most enslaved people in new england were african or whatnot. It allows us to see their backgrounds and flesh them out as to who they were as people. From there, the book has three chapters exploring the institution of slavery in new england and the lives of the enlaved people in the region. These chapters look at topics like slave law, slave labor. You could find slaves working in every part of the economy. Whether in domestic servitude, in households, women as support for households, men as valets or coachmen. Rope making, distilling, ship building, enslaved labor was central to it, especially in urban areas like boston. But in the Rural Economy as well. You see extensive use of enslaved labor. So its everywhere by the early 18th century, deeply ingrained in the economy of the region. And looking at the slavery and resistance to slavery. How enslaved people resisted. What allows me to narrate these stories it comes back to what i just told about mark is that the records here are really rich. The court records, for example. The account books kept by merchants and manufacturers. Let private letters and diaries, wills and print sources like newspapers give us a really good sense of what life was like for enslaved people. So, for example, in one of the major collections for the colony of massachusetts, theyre called the suffolk files. Theyre all the court papers, despite the name suffolk. Theyre all of the court file papers for the colony of massachusetts as a whole. And in there is hundreds of testimonies and depositions of from enlavslaved people. Certainly, theyre biased testifying as a witness for a plaintiff or defendant, Something Like that but also talk about their lives, who they know, what they know. You can actually hear their voices through these documents and thats unique for understanding slavery in the English Speaking world until the 19th century. So the reports are really rich and you can find them everywhere. Anywhere you book, youre going to find the presence of slavery in the documentary record. So that allows us to kind of narrate and tell the stories of enslaved people, what their lives were like, what they did for work, who they married, what the relationship between enslaved parents and their children were, you can see all of these facets in the document and the book takes that up in turn. The final chapter explores the American Revolution and its impact on slavery. For both ideological and economic reasons. More significantly, it created opportunities for enslaved people to strike out for their own freedom. Through activism. Military service. Or simply running away. The opportunities created by the revolution opened up a whole world of possibilities. In terms of writing this book this was perhaps my favorite part to research. My first book cut short, i didnt want to deal with the revolution. This one i do deal with the revolution. And i found amazing things. For example, if you look at the 1790 federal census for the state of connecticut. In the 1790 federal census, they only list householders. Who was the head of house. But they will list the race of the householder. If you look in the state of connecticut, if you find all of the africanamerican men head of house in 1790, 20 of them were veteran to the continental army. And they could link their freedom to the service in the continental army. Its amazing. So disproportionately africanamerican men in new england fought. And they served and many of them could link their freedom to that service. Integrated army. But of course, the American Revolution had two sides. And theres plenty of evidence of enslaved people joining the british as well. One of my favorite stories i tell is of a man named poppy fleet. Poppy complete belonged to a guy named thom d thomas fleet jr. Wa rabid patriot. Poppy fleets appearance in the record. He comes and goes in and out of the records for 25 years. His first appearance in the record is actually a runaway ad. Junior pulls an ad because poppy has run away. But he didnt run away from thomas fleet. He ran away from jail. He broke out of jail. As it turns out many enslavers in new england, if they couldnt control their bondsmen and women, they put them in jail. Send them to jail, let the state or colony deal with it. And thats what happened to pompy. He broke out. We know his next appearance in the record is march 1776. March 17th, 1776, to be precise, evacuation day. Theres a record, when the british army decamped from new york city at the end of the war of independence are in 1783, at that point, about 3,000 africanamericans were living in and around new york city. Working for and with the British Military. And the British Military evacuates them. And one of the officers, guy carlton, records all of the people from african descent who left. He records their names, their spouses, their ages and how they ended up in british service. And pompy fleet areas. And beside his name it says evacuated with the army from boston. So, we know he evacuated from the army, with the british army. He went and lived in new york city for the duration of the war where he worked for a loyalist printer by the name of alexander robinson. After the war, he moved to halifax, nova scotia, it appears he may have received land and many did. And he continued working there for robinson publishing the Royal Gazette in 1776 when robinson decides he was going to leave. Pompy disappears from the records and appears again in 1771, departing for sierra le e leone, which the colony to resettle in west africa, circumstantial evidence, uncomfortable saying this, circumstantial evidence suggests that pompy was the first printer in british sierra reloarelee le. Because of stories like pompy fleet and really the stories of house of households in connecticut, that chapter ends on a cautiously object mystic note. By the end 1780s slavery had no sle legal standing in any of the states in theory. And many slaves were rapidly becoming free in theory. And slave theyd had been abolished in theory. And there was real possibility for equal partners in theory. The epilogue of the book is much, much more optimistic, it demonstrates all of those theories and puts them into context. Systematically denied their freedom. And alienated from white society. One that i had in the book in the process of studying the revolutionary era, a process termed selling out. It lasted to the 1790s when both enslaved black people were sold out sold out of new england. Many of them were kidnapped. Every new england state by the mid1780s had passed laws against this yet it continued. The work of abolitionist societies to help people who had been kidnapped and recover them to petition the government to have them found and brought back. Significant numbers of enslaved and black new englanders. Many end up in canada. In nova scotia, the maritime economies in nova scotia could use that sort of enslaved labor that had worked here in new england. And so, for example, if you take a look at loyalist newspapers in 1780s and 90s, they also published run away slave ads. Occasionally youll find the run away slave ad that will say things like i believe theyre trying to get home to massachusetts. The numbers are hard to get at because its illegal activity but if you take a look at the Providence Abolition Society and prince hall to limit this practice, this selling out. I would estimate as many as 1,000 people were trafficked out of the new england between the 1760s and 1790s. This is 20,000 people over the entire people. That population is trafficked out in the revolutionary era. This suggests a sort of lost promises of freedom. So, not only do you have sellingout, you have the rise of formal segregation. Public schools are segregating in all of the new england states. You have the marginalization from the labor force after the revolution. You have the rise of scientific racism. And the application of racist principles to public policy. Many free people actually just leave new england entirely. And you can see this. Many black veterans, for example, who serve in the continental army, just settle away from new england. They never return home. Others struggle to make a living, drifting town to town, looking for work. Being chased out by town authorities. Worn out as the process was called. So as all of this was happening, what about those white worlds . What was happening in white new England Society . My second reading from the book here. As blacks left the region, or struggled to eke out a living, new englands white population never faced the consequences for the sins of slavery, rather, they enjoyed all of the benefits of generations of slave ownership with little regard for those who suffered under its yoke. Even sympathetic whites or unslavers benefited. Poor whites many of never owned slaves embraced racism. Not only did that lessen competition in the job market but it gave poor whites the satisfaction of racial superiority. As slavism dwindled, they began to find themselves as fundamental different. New england was free soil, so rich in liberty that slavery could never take deep root. Slavery, this line of thought went, was never important to the new england colony. Was only practiced by a few wealthy families and was a largely benevolent institution. Most importantly, white owners realizes their ways. In crafting this network of a free new england, whites absolved itself of slavery. For black pain and commiseration away from slavery and on to individual moral families. Under this logic, if people cannot thrive in a land of liberty and opportunity, they have no one to blame but themselves. White new englanders, in short, made slavery and its legacies history. And its that facet that reverberates across time to us today and into this evening. The ability of white new englanders to totally distance themselves from slavery helped craft many of the myths about slavery in new england. Myths that youre probably familiar with. That slavery was economically unimportant. The myth that only a few people were unslaved. And slavery never took root. And more new englanders saw their ways. Or most of sauall, slavery neve existed in new england, or at least in a form that most would recognize as much. My hope is at the very least that this book is able to confront and help fight against those myths. Thank you so much. [ applause ] im happy to take a few questions, but do wait for the microphone once i call on you. So, this gentleman right here. Who were the earliest voices against slavery . And second, a more political comment, whats your view on reparations . Oh, boy. Okay. So the first answer, the earliest antislavery activity you see, youre going to start to see antislavery activity by the late 17th, early 18th century. But theres something i should mention first. That enslaved people were never fans of slavery. Theres always antislavery sentiment as long as slavery is present. Thats the first thing. The second thing is in terms of actually white sentiment against slavery, you begin to see this late 17th, early 18th century. Quakers in places like rhode island some of the earliest antislavery. But quaker antislavery has much more to do with the intradynamics of the quaker community. The way in which to own and hold other people as property the do with what you want with those people in a way that hurts the godly community. You see a similar argument coming out of samuel saul who is a justice. He writes a pamphlet in 1700 called the selling of joseph arguing against slavery. Enslaved people in his words constitute an extra vasset blood. They can never be included into the body politic. Theyre always foreign. Theyre always alien, thats why we get rid of slavery because it will disrupt the community. A sort of abolition is we recognize it as such. Perhaps it the disenfranchisement, thats more towards the revolution in the 1760s and 1770s. The way unslaved people became free until new england so many of that was initial initiative of them filing lawsuits. And there is a community of abolitionist lawyers who hemmed them, helped them file suit and petition and things like that. The question of reparations. Im not comfortable answering it, first of all. So, my take, i draw from the you know, the question is what constitutes republic reparations. I think about the essay, one of the things he says, we will all share the reparations that would happen, including africanamericans. Right. This would be redistributing public goods to help communities disproportionately affected by the legacies of slavery. So taxes would be paying into that. I think thats the road to go. Like i said, im going to punt on the question. The other side of it, though, where i am much more comfortable talking about it as a historian, as an educator, not the politics side of it and how feasible it is that these stories have to be told. They should be part of any interpretive programming at Historic Sites. They deserve those stories deserve to be told just as much, you know, as the founding fathers. So theres an education component to reparations that i think is a little bit of an easier answer for me, at least, as a historian which is to say, yeah, these stories should be front and center in our interpretation. They should be present in the histories in the way they havent been. I think thats the first step in kind of education. So, i have a question about the 20,000 that you estimate that were unslaved in new england. And im wondering if you base that on the 1765 slave census . Because my reading of that slave census was that it was only persons above 16 that were counted. So, based on that, wouldnt you think the number would be even higher than 20,000 if you include those who were 16 and below . Yes. So, yes, about 20,000 people looking through the records, using the transatlantic slavery database corroborating how others arrived in new england. Thats not taking into account people having reproduction, smuggling or in the books. 20,000 is a conservative estimate of people trafficked in. It also doesnt include the hundreds of North Carolina people that are trafficked into new england as well. So, theres probably a significantly larger number. But in certain amounts, 20,000 in the region but all of the slave all of the census, either the slave census, the official one taken by governor shirley, they dramatically undercount the number of unslaved people because they dont enumerate people under the age of 16. So, for example, a large percentage of enslaved people in new england were children. The largest slaveholders were artisans. Middle class people today, middling people as they were called in the 18th century. They would prefer to buy children. Because they were cheaper. You could raise them in your household. Youre a skilled artisan, so theyre apprentice. By the time theyre adults, theyre worth a hefty sum of money and theyre skilled and experience. Yes, the desire for enslaved children. You can see this in the writing of Peter Nathaniel as well. For his personal valet, he wanted a 12yearold boy. So, yeah, i think there is especially in the official records, theres drastic undercounting, because of this issue of not counting children but also enslaved people were taxable property. And of course, new englanders did not like paying taxes. We know this, right. So it behooved them to side hid enslaved people. To under claim. If you take a look, you can see this dramatically in boston where the larged slave population lived in massachusetts. Theres a record taken through someone who writes it now about 1500 enslaved people in boston in like 1752. Then you look at the slave census, 1754, and theres only like 900. Well, what happened to 600 people in two years . Well, thats dramatically undercounting. And this is one of the things that has led to the interpretation by historians who look at official records and say, oh, theres not that many. Look at the low numbers. Thats not the case. There was dramatic undercounting and im being very conservative with numbers in the book because its so hard to get. Yes. I have a question that is actually kind of a preamble to your book. Okay. I was struck when you were talking about folks in the 1630s enslaving people. Just as the people came here with the skill to make a buck or make a gristmill work, they came with a spirit to make a slave. They also came with a societal permission as to what they could get away with. You know, my question is kind of, without going back to egypt and greece and rome, going to, you know, britain, magna carta, and the rest of it, was it a permission that was granted for native peoples, for nonchristian peoples, for people with brown skin . And where did the skills come from . And what was the permission that was granted . Is there wasthere was a lot. Its a big question. Slavery largely disappears from england by 1400 or so, especially after the black death in 14th century. Slavery largely disappears. And with best said, other forms, apprenticeship, servitude, they do have the presence of using bound labor even in the absence of slavery. 1500s. Theyre key for understanding whats happening in new england. The first is englishmen begin traveling abroad. They go all over the world and they begin writing on what they encounter and see. One of the places they see is the caribbean and latin america. By the 16th century when they visit cuba or mexico or peru, they see a large number of unslaved africans. What this does in their mind, it links slavery to blackness. Through the travels, its a little more complicated than that, but through these travels, thats one of the things that happens. The other development that comes out of the 16th century and into the 17th century is sort of this nature of coulonization. Its largely private. We think about the Massachusetts Bay company. These are companies with power to design their own laws. They kind of do whatever they want, within reason. And theyre 3,000 miles away from any royal oversight. So they can craft laws. So what happens in the colony of massachusetts, in 1641, they actually openly legalize slavery. Ironically, its called the body of liberties, article 91 of the body of liberties deals with bond slavery. With slavery. If you read it, youd first thing they outlaw slavery. Because it says bond slavery is banned except, and they this three exemptions. Its people who are captured in just wars, i. E. , noncollisionhr. Native people can be enslaved. People who are strangers, foreigners as a language. Or those sold to us is a third. So, now, youve just accounted for the ability to capture native people as slaves because theyre captured in just wars. Ill come back to that in a second. And two, selling people as slaves, either african or indigenous. And those who are foreign or strangers so africans. It reads as though they outlaw slavery but really its racially codified. Especially what theyre saying, people of european descent cannot be enslaved. Anybody captured in war or whatnot can be. The idea of just wars, this is deliberate. One of the shocking things, when we think about i talk about that cycle of indigenous captives being sold for african captives. It struck me as just how open and deliberate and shameless this was. Theres a letter from 1645 from emanuel downing. Emanuel downing was john theorys brotherinlaw. He lived in salem and went back to new england. In this letter, downing writes to winthrop and says we should start a war with the narragansett. It will be just war because theyre not christian. Well be able to take them captive, and well be able to sell those captives to the west indies and he calls them moors but africans. Hes already worried that salem is running short of laborers. All the young people dont want to stick around. The moment they get any opportunity, they go and settle land, they move away from the town. So where do you get a labor force . Well, you have to pay them. Wages are high in this context. So you bring in africans who will work he says, essentially, one african can be provided for 20 africans for one white man is essentially his ratio he worked out in his mind in terms of provisions. So its a much cheaper way of labor to bring. Winthrop shuts it down. But any sort of hint of diplomatic people with Indigenous People, youre seeing these letters, all of a sudden, people waiting to capitalize, to see an opportunity to capture Indigenous People to sell. To bring back. I promised i was going to end there but im going to add one more thing. This is a cycle that continues until king philips war in 1675, 1676, when thousands of indigenous captives are sold out of new england. Upwards of 2500 people are captured and sold to the west indies. Most of them are actually sold by the colony of massachusetts, not by private merchants, but by the colony trying to recover costs of the war. So many indigenous captives are being sold out of new england to barbados and to jamaica that both of those colonies banned the further importation of indigenous new englanders. Theyre afraid theres so many warriors coming in that theyre going to cause a slave war. So theyre banning the indigenous warriors from new england so this tells you the scope and volume of that exchange. My apologies for going on forever. Yes. Wait for the mic. Are you aware of this happening in textbook and history, and has anyone been contacting you about trying to update and present the real story so that children will have a better idea of what really happened . For me, personally, no. I mean, ive not i know theres a push to get my book in high schools from the press is kind of that option. Most of my work is kind of on the public history front. So, ive been part of work with old north and a church in boston, and a few other groups. And theyve begun to move. And theyre beginning to move this story of slavery to the front and educational and interpretive programs. I think its Something Like the dams going to break, right . And youre going to start to see these changes happening in textbooks and things like that. One of the remarkable things, having given this book talk a number of times now is how many people come up afterwards and tell me i never learned this story. I didnt know this. So, im hoping, right, that i think of myself as part of like i said, this is a conversation thats going on. I think of it as a larger conversation and i hope that dams about to break and see it spread all the way down into Elementary School curriculum. Yes. What made you so interested in this topic . Its a long story, but ill shorten. It was actually started as fairfair fairly pragmatic. My ph. D. Is from boston. I studied history and colonial history and slavery. I always thought because i was histed in history and slavery i was going to be a historian of the south and west indies. I get to Boston College and realize graduate school takes a long time. You want to be a little more pragmatic. I had this idea of comparing different colonies, and i had to learn a couple of foreign languages. I didnt want to be in graduate school for a decade. So i started looking and i did some reading and i realized there wasnt a vast literature on slavery in new england. And then there hadnt been anything on boston. There is histories of slavery in new york and philadelphia, but why not boston . The third major colonial american port city. I said, ill take a look. And one of my graduate advisers alan rodgers informed me about the files that i mentioned in my talk, this massive collection of court file papers. He said its really hard to navigate but just go take a look. And lo and behold, i found all these testimonies and depositions of enslaved people from boston, about 300 of them. Ive never seen them before english language record. I read about it, because the inquisition would record it. But now could i write a history of slavery in boston but Say Something about enslaved people and their lives more generally. So i became excited about it. But this particular and i end up writing the first book. But this book in particular came out of a frustration with writing that book, which is when i embarked on the research for the first book, i wanted a short history that would give me an over view, so i would have like a reference work. And there is a couple of books that kind of work. But they werent particularly short, and they didnt have a lot of further reading. There were bibliographies and so that is what i wanted to do. This was a pragmatic concern but and when i got into the process of writing, i realized were at a crossroads with all of the different people talking to each other. In the process of writing the first book, i met so many other scholars who are working on slavery in new england and public historians, and educators and activists doing this work, and i thought this is bigger than just my kind of scholarly needs. This is warranting a public conversation. Is there any other questions . [ applause ] so in your research, did you come across anything specific to hingam . Not that you see all of the towns and records and things like this when you look at census, but i did not come across anything in particular to hingham. Though my first book sh i learned from my michelle, i ended up writing a couple of things about slave owners and hingham was part of the county, so a couple of slave owners who were from here. Yeah. Great. Thank you all for coming. [ applause ] thank you all so much. For those of you who would like to meet jared, hes up here signing book plates. If you ordered a book with your ticket, can you have them personalized and well deliver that when the books arrive tomorrow. Thank you. And if we could form a line here in front of the podium. Youre watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan3, explore our nations past, cspan3, created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Weeknights this month, were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, oral histories with foot soldiers from the 1960s civil rights movement, beginning with Gloria Grinnell who talks about participating in the 1960 lunch counter sitin protest during her time as a student at virginia university. She also describes the Culture Shock she experienced as a californian attending college in virginia. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. Each week American History tv american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places. Coming up next, we travel 45 minutes west of new orleans to visit whitney plantation to learn about the history of slavery in america. Hi, my name is ashley rogers. Im the director of Museum Operations at the whitney plantation, and were beginning our today in a historic freedmans church which was built cir
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