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The final abolition of While people of color enjoyed the same rights to WHAT’S IN A NAME? Free Blacks in slavery throughout trial by jury as did their white neighbors, they were barred from serving on those juries. While New England did not Massachusetts was one of the first states in the Throughout American history, people New England occur till the mid-1800s. Union to mandate tax-supported, public schools of African descent have demanded in every town, black children in Boston found the right to define their racial identity from the In 1823, when Peter Robbins* purchased over 13 themselves in underfunded segregated schools. through terms that reflect their acres and the newly built, two-room farmhouse Although property-holding men in the Bay State proud and complex history. African Revolutionary in Concord, Massachusetts, free people of African could vote in elections, individuals of African Americans across greater Boston descent had been a part of New England for nearly descent often struggled to establish themselves used the terms “African,” “colored,” 200 years. People of color in New England were financially and earn enough money to purchase and “negro” to define themselves War to the Civil able to obtain their freedom through a variety of land. Those who did so – such as Peter Robbins before emancipation, while African means: some by serving in the military, others and on Concord’s John Garrison, Sr. (“Jack”) Americans in the early 1900s used by absconding from their enslavers and starting Great Field – could afford only marginal land on War (1775–1865) new lives for themselves. After the American the outskirts of rural towns. Thus, as the Robbins the terms “black,” “colored,” “negro,” Revolution, a few people of color successfully sued and Garrison families made lives for themselves and “Afro-American” – which later for freedom in local courts, but the impact of these in Concord during the 1830s, they enjoyed what became “African American” to identify cases was uncertain. State-sponsored gradual one historian aptly referred to as “quasi-freedom.” themselves and their ancestors. In our emancipation schemes offered another slow By the 1850s, however, John Garrison, Jr. owned brochures, the terms “people of color,” route to freedom. Meanwhile, state governments a home and three acres near Concord center. “people of African descent,” “black,” restricted the rights of the growing population of and “African American” are used free people of color. interchangeably to reflect the identities t Photo taken of 91-year-old Jack claimed by African Americans over In the face of all of these obstacles, many formerly Garrison when time. enslaved people defended their status as freemen he was given a walking stick to by forming such independent organizations as commemorate his These and the terms “enslaved” Prince Hall’s African Freemasons (1787), and old age, c. 1860. (versus “slave”) and “enslaver” (versus Newport’s Free African Society (1790). By 1800, (Courtesy Concord Museum) “master” or “owner”) are used to Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire reflect the humanity of the millions of were the only states to list no slaves on the United black men, women, and children who How free were States Census. claimed their personhood, in various ways large and small, despite the laws and systems that bound them. free people of color? t John Garrison, Jr., whose father (above) had escaped slavery BY KERRI GREENIDGE, TUFTS UNIVERSITY in New Jersey, earned AND JOHN HANNIGAN, BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY a steady salary as the Town House p Peter Robbin’s signature on a promissory note Superintendent and for $12.81 to Daniel Shattuck, his creditor and owned a house with one of the richest men in town, 1833. (Courtesy three acres in Concord Massachusetts Archives) center. (Courtesy Concord Museum) *NOTE: names in bold are associated with the Robbins House. © THE ROBBINS HOUSE, INC. t African American For free black men and Baptist minister Thomas Paul was instrumental in schools for free black men in Connecticut. Susan abolitionist David women, life in 19th-century founding the First African Baptist Church on Joy Robbins Garrison, then, was one of many New Walker published Street in 1805-6. Built almost entirely on African Englanders of color to shape abolitionism when his appeal for New England was one of racial equality American donations and labor, the church was she hosted the second meeting of the Concord and black unity in sharp contradictions. followed by dozens of black cultural societies all Female Anti­slavery Society in 1837. 1829, in Boston. over New England. These organizations circulated (Public Domain) Nevertheless, New England’s antebellum black petitions opposing segregated railroads and Numbering fewer than 24,000 by 1860, New settlements sustained independent communities against laws barring interracial marriages, and England’s African American activists, from where people of color established families and promoting legal protections for fugitive slaves. Salem to Newport, played an influential part provided shelter to those left in poverty after By 1831, when William Lloyd Garrison first in the national crusade against slavery. They slavery’s end. Some were mixed race neighborhoods published The Liberator, Boston already boasted were the first to subscribe to white abolitionist composed of Wampanoag, Narragansett, Pequot, a vibrant and healthy black activist movement. William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator and the first and other indigenous people, poor whites, and Indeed, it was from a Boston print shop that black to rescue the editor from a pro-slavery lynch mob people of African descent, including both natives abolitionist David Walker issued his Appeal to the in Boston. In 1849 they sought out future Senator of the area and fugitives from the South. Despite Coloured Citizens of the World, a radical pamphlet Charles Sumner to launch a legal challenge to poverty and white hostility, these communities urging northern free people of color to stand with Boston’s segregated schools. Through these nurtured generations of free African Americans their brothers and sisters in the South in the fight efforts Massachusetts became the first state in SOURCES & FURTHER READING who, like Concord’s Ellen Garrison, helped to to end slavery, even as human bondage expanded the Union to eliminate a legal ban on interracial Primary sources include Concord deeds, censuses, shape abolitionist organizations in Boston, Salem, throughout the early Republic. marriage (1843), to prohibit racial segregation town and vital records, and more. Providence, and New Bedford. in public schools (1855), and to grant blacks the Catherine Adams and Elizabeth Pleck, Love of Elsewhere in the New England countryside, right to serve on juries (1860). In 1863, when the Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary An expanding communications network linked African-descended people formed connections Lincoln administration authorized the enlistment New England (Oxford University Press, 2010). rural people of color with New England’s urban with organizations in Boston, Hartford, New of African Americans into the Union Army, Jared Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth Century Boston (New York University centers. The region’s largest black community was Haven, and Salem. A black man from Maine, New England’s free people of color were among Press, 2016). in Boston, where free people of color contributed John Brown Russwurm, taught in Boston’s First the first to volunteer. They played a key role in Stephen Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom: Fighting to the birth of the region’s radical abolitionist African Baptist Church, after cofounding the transforming the Civil War into a struggle for for Black Citizenship in a White Republic 1829–1889 movement. In 1806, Concord-born siblings Susan country’s first black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, citizenship, freedom, and equality for all. By 1865, (Penguin Books, 2013). and Obed Robbins were founding members of in Manhattan in 1827. New Hampshire’s Paul when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution Elise Lemire, Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath the First African Baptist Church on Beacon Hill. family opened churches in upstate New York, ended slavery and involuntary servitude, free in Concord Massachusetts (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). while the mixed-race Easton family of Stoughton, people of color in Concord and beyond provided Massachusetts, supported industrial training an example of freedom’s possibilities for the Joanne Pope Melish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual u First Emancipation and “Race” In New England 1790–1860 African Republic as a whole. (Cornell University Press, 2000). Baptist Julie Winch, Between Slavery and Freedom: Free Church, People of Color in American From Settlement to the founded on t In 1827, John Brown Civil War (Rowan and Littlefield, 2014). Boston’s Russwurm cofounded Beacon the first African Hill in American owned and CONTENT REVIEWERS 1805-6, is operated newspaper, the old- Freedom’s Journal, Robert Bellinger, Suffolk University, Black Studies est black in New York. (Public Program Director; Robert Gross, University of church in Domain) Connecticut, History Professor Emeritus, Author Massa- of The Minutemen and Their World; Joanne Pope chusetts. Melish, University of Kentucky, History Associate (Public Professor, Author of Disowning Slavery: Gradual p Thomas Paul was the first spiritual leader of Domain) Emancipation and ‘Race’ in New England, 1789 – Boston’s black community, establishing the First 1860. African Baptist Church with 20 followers.