ffi *h:*: hþ**.,tir"::.?år Volume 66, Number 2 SLrrnmer 2008 rro$sn .jr G,!RÞDNs.

Figure 1.

As manl as Jour bløck slaves were arnong tbe workers at tbe construction site oJ Brown IJniversìt1i University Hall. Engrav ing cø, 7792; Brown Universitl Liubrøry, løue Løbor øt the College Edtfice: ilding Brow n (Jniv er sity't iuersity Høll in 1770

One of the legends about almost unrecorded.r Indeed, the only evidence ROBERT P. EMLEN

colonial-era is the story that known today that enslaved Africans helped Robert P Emlen is the university curator ønd at was builr build the College EdiÊce must be inferred by q senior lecturer in Amerícan ciúlization at Brown Unitersitl, This artícle was by slaves. As with mosr apocryphal tales, this reading between the lines of a ledger kept to frst presented øt aJorum sponsored b1 the Brown one is never supported by speciÊcs when it is record conscruction expenses for the building. Unitersíty Steering Committee on Slaverl and recitedlWho were these slavesl How manywere Those few tacit references to wages paid on that Justice on October 25,2004. rherei What, exactþ did they doi Such details job, however, give a glimpse into the ordinary might allow the listener to judge the story's workings ofslave labor in Providence at the end veraciry. Yet, as with all good folk tales, the story ofthe colonial era. contains some elemenrs of rurh, This ardcle In Bodies Politic, his authoritative scudy of will examine the circumstances surrounding race relations in the American North from the construcrion of rhe 'College Edificd' at 1730 to 1830,John Wood Sweet describes the Brown and, through reliable historical evidence, multiracial world of late colonial Rhode Island, attempt to explain the part that slave labor in which slave owners, slave ffaders, antislavery played in the consrruction ofthis building. reformers, enslaved Africa¡rs, enslaved Indians, -f free people of color (both Native American and I African), and indentured servanrs of African, ,f(,thewint", of 1770 the governing corporarion Native Americary and European ancestry of the College of Rhode Island purchased an constantþ negotiated the practical realities of eight-acre pasrure on a hill overlooking the conducting their daily lives among one anorher.2 town of Providence as a sire for che school's Êrst The boundaries berween these groups were building the large brick structure now known always porous, such as when people of color as Brown's University Hall, but which was then earned or lost their freedom, or whén slaves known throughout Rhode Island simply as the bore their whire owners' children, or when College EdiÊce. Consrrucrion records kepr for the reformer and slave owner Moses Brown the corporation reveal that the workforce that admonished his brothers to cease slave trading built the College EdiÊce was racially integrated, or when Narragansett Indian women purchased and that free people of color worked side by African slaves to be their husbands and to farher side on the job with enslaved Africans. Today, their children.3 This weher of racial dynamics those who know Brown Universiry (as the and contested power was intrinsic to the daily College of Rhode Island was renamed in 1803) life of Providence when the college decided to might Ând the very notion rhat slave labor was build there i¡ 1770, Thus the makeup of the ever used on the campus so foreign an idea as African American, European American, and to be virtually unimaginable. In 7770,howeveç Native American workforce building the College the use of slave labor on College Hill seems EdiÊce reflected the complex sociery of that to have been so unremarkable that it passed seaport town at the end ofthe colonial period. 36 SLAVE LABOR AT THE COLLEGE EDIFICE

When it was founded h L764, the College pro¡"., i" relied on the practical skills of the of Rhode Island was located in the parsonage treasurer of the college's goveming corPoration, of the Baptist church in Warren, Rhode Island, Providence merchantJohn Brown,John and his with the churctís minister, also three brothers were early ProPonents of sealing the school! founding president. Within Êve the college in Providence, and they were some of years the college had outgrown ics borrowed its major benefactors. To manage construction rooms and was looking for a permanent home' expenses at the building the new college could considerable After a competition emong the principal towns draw not only upon John Browns of the colony, in February 7770 the members 6nancial skill but also on the collecdve expertise ofthe college colporation resolved to locate tJre of his family Êrm, Nicholas Brown & Company. school in Providence and to construct a new From January I, 1770, to March 11, building desþed to serve every residential and 1771,, John Browrís clerks at the waterfront academic function for the faculry and students countinghouse of Nicholas Brown & Company (Êgure 1).a As soon as the ground thawed that recorded the expenses of materials acquisition March, work on the foundadon for the College and casual labor in a sixteen-page ledger,6 John the EdiÊce began. By the time spring arrived, College Brown did not produce the Ênished copy of of Hill was swarming with workmen-excavators, accouncing ledger himself-extant examples teamsters, stonemasons, cimber Êamers, and his correspondence show his own handwricing to

joiners, as well as common laborers' be cramped, r¡neven, and difficult to decipher- The college acted as what might today be but he had the Êrms clerks r¿nscribe entries for spent called its own general contractor, negotiatingwith every sterling pound, shilling and penny for materials and labor on the College EdiÊce In the Êne handwriting so essential to transacting business before the invencion of mechanical rypewriting and in the irregular spelling so of orthography, rypical before the standardization the countinghouse clerks at Nicholas Brown & Company recorded the minutiae ofconstruction management in eighteenth-century Providence Figure 2, craftsmen in a variery of trades-the mâsons examplø the November 27, L770,ledger entries in "The who laid the bricls and stone, the roofers who (Êgure 2). The ledger shows, for College to Nícboløs Brown & Co, Dr!'¡ attached the roofslates, thejoiners who built the value of bricks delivered to the wharf at the foot of oJ Brown (Jniuersitl Arcbives, Collection tbe interior woodwork-to construct speci6c parts College Street, the cost ofa new shovel for digging All reproductions oJledger entries are Jrom of the building on set terms for Êxed prices.5 The the foundation trenches, the cost of a barrel of this source. college also organized a workforce of unskilled lime for making mortar, the value of a day's labor spent shoveling sand for the mortar (Êgure 3). The level of detail in the ledger provides a wealth of information to the Present-day readeç with laconic entries naming individual craftsmen and tradesmen and revealing what

Figure 3. labor to assist with the innumerable small jobs kinds of materials were used in the building Juþ 3, 1770, ledger entry. not ordinarily covered by contracts with the and how much the college paid for them, down skilled trades. to the farthing, or quarter penny. Further, the With just himself and one tutor the only ledger records that unskilled workmen like employees of the college, President Manning Patrick Dwier and Luke Thurston were paid was in no position to manege the construction three shillings a day for their labor (Êgure 4). of what would become the largest building What sort of work were these laborers in colonial Rhode Island. For this enormous doing on the projecti The actual construction SLAVE LABOR AT THE COLLEGE EDIFICE 37

of the building was contraced co skilled crews ,f of timber raisers, brick masons, roo6ng slaters, JO blacksmiths, and woodworkjoiners.T But there ú o,yattÍ''a*,,t f, ? ry ^*1/t'y.9 were innumerable odd jobs that were crucial @" W*t:-i o-,,) -1 to the project, and these were handled by '; unskilled laborers. Though the nature of rhe work performed was not always specifred in the ledgeç suchjobs as the digging of rhe well nexr to the building seem to have been assigned to the unskilled laborers. Within individual ledger entries are indications that some of the laborers workng on thejob were persons of color. In listing the

payments for the laborers'wages, in some cases Slaves sometimes negotiated with their owners Figure 4. (top) John Brown desþated the men by race (6gure to split any weges rhey earned through outside Februøry 2, 777L, ledger entry

5). Most people living in colonial Providence work, but there is no suggesËion of a master's Figure 5. were of British descent, and government records agency in Mingo's accounts.s July 31, 1770, ledger entries. of the period, such as censuses and probate documents, used racial descriptors to identify Native Americans and Africans, but nor whires. The common assumption was thât British or to the record of Mingo's / "r^*contrast European alcestrywas the natural order of things payments is the record of payments made for and need not be speciÊed. Because the name of the work of a man named Pero:'þaid Henry the laborer Patrick Dwiet for instance, is never Paget Esq. for 12 Yz days work of his Negro accompanied by aracíal.descriptor in the ledgeç Pero & bill @ 3..... f,7/17/6: reads aJune 1, it is safe to assume that he was not a person of 1770,Iedget entry (Êgure 6). The signiÊcance color but rather (as the phonetic sounding ofhis of this entry lies in the fact that while Pero did name suggests) of Irish exffaction, Racial designerions in the ledger are nor tot - --,% always consistent, however. In the case of 'l4A'r,{a Mingo the well-digger, named several times in the ledger, the term"Negro'was used only once, on July 37, I77ù 'þaid to Mingow Negro ..... the work, a man named Henry Paget received Figure 6. L0 / 0 / 9 i' P erhaps different supervisors reported the fruits of his labor. Although there is no Jøne 7, 7770, ledger enr1. the payments for his wages, or perhaps he mention of the word "slavd' anywhere in the became a familiar presence on the job es dme eccounts of payments for Pero's work, it is progressed and the construction supervisor hard to avoid the conclusion that Pero was no longer found it necessary to identifr him in Henry Pagett slave. the accounting 6y ncei thus the entries 'July Henry Paget, who sryled himself" Esquirej'

16, I77U cash paid Mingo for 1 days work in was a Providence merchant who lived in a grand the well, which is over and above his common house on South Main Street on the present-day wages and agreement,.,,, L0 / L / 2 /2" i'February site of the Providence Counry Courthouse.e 15, 777L paid Wm Mingo [a bonus] for "Esquire" was an honoriÊc rarely used in extraordinary work in the well ..... Ê0/0/17: eighteenth-century Rhode Island; Paget may The ledger entries for wages William Mingo have adopted it as a vestige of some previous earned for himself by digging rhe well at the status among the British gentry.lo When he College EdiÂce suggesr that he was a free man. died in January 1772, the inventory of his 38 SLAVE LAtsOR A-I 1 HE COLLEGE EDIFICE

station in life and the importance with which he viewed himself can be seen in the inscription on his elegant gravestone in the burial ground of Sc. John's Church in Providence, in which "Esquire" prominently occupies the entire line following his name (Êgure 7).12 By comparison, the wording on the gravestone that Henry Paget's family erected for Pero eight years later, identifring him as "Pero An African Servant to the late Henry Pagett Esq.i' reflects the family members' view of their slave as inferior and subservient to themselves (Êgure 8). To begin with, the name Pero signals that the man was a slave, a household. Names FipreT, lesser member of the Paget slaves Gravestone oJ Hewl Pøget, Esquire, 1-772, given to African American by their St. John\ Cburcb, Providerce, Photograpb by owners in Rhode Island were often meant to the author. distinguish them from white Rhode Islanders. taxable possessions recorded that at the time Classical names like Caesar or Jupiter or of his death he owned seven slaves, including Scipio, nicknames like Mingo or Sambo, "L Negro Man named Pero ,.... L30l0l0:Ll names derived from African words like Cudgo That was an unusually large number of slaves or Cuffee, or names of mock deference like for an urbau dweller to own in Providence, Prince or Duchess were not used to name and probably more than could be practically white Rhode Islanders; all such names were meent by whites to signify African ancestry. Figure 8, Furthermore, Pero, unlike Henry Paget, was Grovestone oJ Pero [Pag*t], 7780, Nortb not given the dignity of a last name on his Burial Grosnd, Prottidence, Photogrøph by tbe autbor, grevestone but was identiÊed onti by his Êrst name and, euphemistically, as Paget's'African Servantl'A last name would have indicated an elevated status, and possibly legal standing as a free man. No such suggestion is apparent in the language Henry Pagett family had cut on Pero's stone. The circumstances of the well-digger William Mingo seem to have been quite different from those of his fellow laborer Pero on the construction site of the College EdiÊce. Not only did Mingo have che use of his own money; he also had the use of his own name. By contrast, the ledger entries reveal that Pero had control over neither a last name nor the cash value of his labor; "July 30, I77ù ro Henry Pagec Esqr. For 29 Days \Mork of Pero employed under his roof. It is possible that & bill @ ? /t ..... L4/7 /0" reads a typical entry. Paget managed his slaves as a labor force and This passing reference to the unpaid labor of a hired chem out, Some sense of Paget's elevated man with no last name is one of the few clues SLAVE LABOR AT THE COLLEGE EDIFICB 39

that slave labor was employed in building the ki V0 øþ1/ aweú'/Jlßtù 't ¡'rl ¡{." College EdiÊce. It suggests that while "Mingo, Negroi' was a free man of color, Pero, the V,yntrr#, tt-.+ 'African Servant," was enslaved at the time he Figure 9. May 25, 7770,ledger entry. was working at the College of Rhode Island. Because the word "slavd' was never used in the ledger of expenses for constructing the College EdiÊce, it cannot be known how many enslaved Africans worked on the building. But through certain identifring criteria-the presence of a racial descriptor, the absence of Figure 10, Februøry 8, 1771, ledger entry, a las! name, and the diversion of the colleget payment to a white owner-it is possible to deduce from the ledger the presence ofas many as three other slaves in addition to Pero, sent by their owners to work at the College Edifrce. On May 25,1770, the ledger records an entry

for payment for"r/z days work of Earles Negro Figure 11, ...., L0/7/6"; on February 8, I77L, for "10 Febr uøry 27, 777 1, ledger entry. days work of Mary Young's Negro Man at 3 shillings, to her account"; and on February Providence were assiduous in soliciting their 2I, L777,"To Martha Smiths bill for 8Yz days neighbors on behalfofthe college, enrolling 314 work of Abraham ...,, t)/5/6" (Êgures 9, 10, donors, whose pledges amounted to L3,630, and 11). While no racial designation was used in Providence alone.la In 177I Providence to identi$' Abraham, the diversion of his wages contained an estimâted 500 households, so

implies conscripted labor¡ without a pay packet it would seem that the college's fund-raisers

and without a last name, he was either a child, succeeded in soliciting pledges from over 60 an indentured servant, or, most likely, a slave. percent of the heads of households in town. The status of "Earles Negro' likewise cannot Including the outþing towns, the fund-raisers be determined conclusively, as the ledger does secured pledges of L4,559 ftom 520 different not speci$, who received his wages. But the donors for the construction of the most entries for Pero and for "Mary Young's Negro celebrated building in the colony. Man" are less ambiguous; certainly these two, Pledges could be redeemed in Bricish pounds and possibly all four of these workmen on the sterling Spanish dollars, or Rhode Island colonial College EdiÊce, were slaves. paper money. But cash wâs scarce in 7770, and so, following the custom in local tradø pledges ./ to the subscription fund for the College EdiÊce could be redeemed with the value of goods or ¡[he r"ro,rrc"s to pay for the construction ofthe College EdiÊce were donated by the citizens services. In an announcement datedJanaary 12, of Providence and its neighboring towns. 1770, in the Prouidence Gøzette, John Brown These northern Rhode Islanders convinced the and Stephen Hopkins, the colleget chancellor, governing corporation ofthe college to settle the wrote that "we, in Behalf of the Committee for school at the head ofNarragansea Bay, rather providing Materials and overseeing the Worþ than in Newport, Warren, or East Greenwich, hereby give public Notice to all who are aheady by pledging the most value to a subscription Subscribers, and to those whose beneÊcent fund for building construction (frgxe 12),11 Minds may incline them to become such, to give The leading merchants and politicians of us, as soon as they possibly can, (as the Season 40 sLAvE LABoR AT THE coLLEcE EDrFrcE

furrd, ,orn" of the subscribers to the campaign were also named as vendors in the ledger of expenses incurred in building the College

P. lan¡ations; in New-Euer,erí¡i EdiÊce. For instance, on November 21, I77O' ,;1',.,' i'1,/ V, in eî" riåi;uiã ii-¿r¡i-ni,i ;¿ ;h.¡; s;r'ñ il F;;ì;;;';;;;:, ' . . ' Y V . incorporatcdccnàinPÉf,on¡, thercinmcnrioned,.inro'aBodvPolir, college treasurer John Brown recorded an entry .. fic, and grantcd g¡¡d I rhem full.Porvc¡ ample ,{utlrority ro fouiid ahd códow ¡ "To Hope Angell for cardng load [of] bords ..,.. ';.. €o¡-r.rcr, or u¡¡rv¡¡rsrri, in rhc fdtColony: And whireas â fufficientNum- . bcr,of thePerfons, fo appoirited, liave quaiiñe,l thenlfelves.agreeable'.to faid L/O/0/9: It is unlikely that Hope Angell was . . Aét, ánd arc taliing thc moft probab,lc Meafurcs for forming fo ulefut.and ho- paid in cash for driving the load of lumber up the t' ' nour¡blc an Inftituùon, rvhich-will neceß'erily bc atrcndcd with confideiabic Er- - , ' prnces :-Wc thcrcforc, thc S,'bfr¡ibe¡s, fcnlìblc thar norhing liath a great* hill herself; instead, the value of the cartage she TcntlSncy m ¿dorn humen Neturc,ànd ro promore thc truc Intcrcft and Happi- ' . irefs of Mankind, than ulèful Litcraturc, do, in Confidcràrion thercòf, cachbne supplied was probably credited to her pledge. for hitrfclf, promilc àn

Figure 12. is far advanced) an Account of such Materials Êt his pledge of L12.17 List of subscríbers to tbe College Edifce' for the Building as they would choose to furnish The crediting of contributions of daily L769. RIHS Collectíon. in Lieu of their Subscriptions" (Âgure 13).15 labor towards pledges to the building camPaign Evidence that materials were indeed explains why the value ofslave labor was recorded pledged to the building fund in lieu ofcash can at the same rate as the value of freedmen's labor be found in the lists of subscriptions solicited or white labor: no slave volunteered his own by the advocates for the college in Providence. labor. A slave was assigned to the job by his For example,'Jona Arnold [pledge] to be paid owner, who would wish to be credited with the in lime or yellow pine boards L 3"¡"Gideon full value of a workingman's day labor. In an Young two hogshead limei' As they scoured economy accustomed to bartering goods and the colony for the resources to construct the services, it may not have made much difference College Edifrce, the members of the fund- to the college if it received the contributions in raising committee also recorded pledges for cash or in kind, but it might have made a big services in lieu of cash: "Zephaniah Andrews difference to large slave owners like Henry f,1.0 to be paid in mason worli';'Asa Franklin Paget, who may have hired out his slaves, or É10 to be paid as Carpentry work"; "Sean [?] to building subscribers like Mary Young, who Currie L 5 to be in glazing'; "Matthewson 25 may have been strapped for cash while her dollars to be paid in house carpenters work"; husband, Archibald, was absent in London and "Daniel Tefft Êve dollars in Iron Workl'16 his familyt house on the Providence waterfront Not surprisingly in a small town with such a was being sold for back taxes.rs Perhaps Mary high percentage of contributors to the building Young was obliged to send her house slave up SLAVE LABOR AT THE COLLEGE EDIFICE 41

to the college to work off the obligation of her pledge to the building campaign. John Brown was relentless about collecting on these pledges; in 1772, after Oliver Arnold died, the college sued his widow Elizabeth for fulÊllment of her

alongside freed men of color and skilled white craftsmen suggests a complex social dynamic at work on College Hill in L770. Working in close contact and dependent on each otherî performence, the crew must have developed a familiarity that crossed racial boundaries and legal status. As thejob progressed, hints ofthis familiarity can be read into the clerlis eccounts, as in a July 4, 1770, leàger entry: "1 shod shovel delivered to Pero per Moses [i] Brown L0/3/0i Initially identiÊed in the ledger as "Henry Paget's Negro," Pero soon came to be called by his own name. After a few weeks on the job his was a familiar face, and his race and ,r".n, ,io longer required a distinction in the record. The scant references in John Brown's ledger ofexpenses give no sense that combining slave labor with free labor on the construction of the College EdiÊce was disruptive at the job. The college was acting in accordance with the law of the land, and according to local custom.zo One can imagine the crew not just swinging their picks and shovels together in the well pit but also sitting together drinking the rum that Stephen Hopkins sent up to the job in appreciation for the backbreaking work was 'þublic, negotiated, and fragile."21 The Figure 13. being done (July 12, 1770, Iedger entryt"L/z quality of the well-diggers'work, the gratitude Announcetnent in tbe Providence Gtzette, 12,1770. gallon Rum LO/U0.1 quart W[esd I[ndian] expressed to the workers by the members of Janøary ditto delivered to Pero 0/1.10"). the corporation, the responsibility entrusted to The present-day rcader might Ênd it odd Pero to travel down to town and deliver supplies, to imagine this eighteenth-century gang of including rum, to the work site-these were enslaved and free men-black, white, and not predicated on some theoretical construct Native American-laboring together in concert, about the merís race or on their condition of but in 1770 the dynamics of race and servicude freedom or servitude, The bonuses paid to the in Providence were complicated and constandy workers demonstrate that the men werejudged shifting.John Wood Sweet notes that in contrast individually by their performance on the job. to'the illusion of slavery as . . , privatg absolute, Everyone concerned must have been aware that and permanenti'the daily experience of slavery the difference berween the enslaved Africans and 42 SLAVE LABOR AT THE COLLEGE EDIFICE

Guild, then the Mingo, the free black man, was a consequence the nineteenth century Reuben pointed out clìe not of some inevitable natural law but of an Brown Universicy librarian, labor in his 1867 History accident of birth or some turn of fortune in payments for slave hundred years later, each marís own history. Laboring shoulder to of Brown IJniuersity'z, A history of the construccion shoulder with the free mery che slaves likely saw in his deÊnidve prepared for the 1963 no inherent deÊciencies in themselves' As they of the College EdiÊce Universiry Hall as a National engaged with the free men in the teamwork designation of Carter Brown librarian required to raise the building the slaves might Historic Landmark John remarked on the use have sensed by example the possibilities for emericus Lawrence'Wroth on the building2a In 1998 the their own release from bondage. ofenslaved labor By the close of the colonial period the entire ledger was reproduced photographically, copies of each were exhibited institution of slavery in Rhode Island was faltering' and enlarged Page Hall. In 2004, as parc Although Rhode Island's Êrst antislavery law was on the walls of Universiry mounced by the Brown Universicy not enacted until 1784 for some years there had of an initiative on Slavery and the been sþs of a nascent awareness that human Steering Committee Justicø was reproduced digitally and slavery was unjust, indefensible, and impracdcal' endre document of the Brown University Bymidcentury,slaveowners hadbeen increasingly placed on the website Initiatives.25 hard-pressed to explain che convoluted logic Library's Center for Digital references to slavery underþing the insritudon. In the 1760s several Disquieting as those the years, the ledger was Providence residents included clauses in their may have been over expurgated. It was easy wills specifying that when they died their slaves never supPressed or as an amnesia about were to be Êeed. I¡ \770 the Newport minister to overlook, however, England settled so Samuel Hopkins preached a seminal serrnon African slavery in New land that the implication condemning slavery as immoral. Later in that thoroughly over the tacic references-evidently the sameyear the ReverendJames Manning a Baptist of these few direct connection to minister and president of the College of Rhode only documentation of a college's early history-failed Island, freed his only slava In 1773 the Rhode slavery in the the ledgert latter- Island meetingofthe Religious Sociery of Friends to register with most of scholarly inquiry (Quakers) resolved that, as a matter of conscience, day readers. Only with the of the Brown its members should manumit their slaves' In initiated with the formation on Slavery 1778 the Rhode Island þislature passed an University Steering Committee were these few obscure act offering Êeedom to any'âble-bodied negro, and Justice in 2003 examined and explicated' mulatto, or Indian man'slavd'who would enlist references to slavery in the Condnentalarmy.2zIt would take dec¿des T- of increasingly forceful legislation to abolish I slaves who slave in Rhode Island, Æl^Jirv, what happened to the slave owning and trading a College EdiÊcel Of those who but these were earþ manifestations of a growing *ork"d on the as slaves, we know only Pero ewareness that slaves could be, a¡rd should be, can be identiÊed no body of written evidence freed for the good ofall. by name. Although Providence, some Although the social history revealed between exists to document his life in survive him. Pero is the lines ofJohn Brown's accounting may come material evidence does by his gravestone in Providencds as a revelation today, the ledger has been read memorialized which reveals that he and reread for 237 years. It was well known in North Burial Ground, year, eight the eighteenth century, when the governing died in 1780 in his seventy-second owner, Henry co¡porarion of the college scrutinized every years after the death of his of the inscription expenditure that Nicholas Brown & Co' made Paget. The patronizing tone Pero's for the construction of the College EdiÊca In carved on this stone, which emphasizes SLAVE LABOR AT THB COLLEGE EDIFICE 43

Figure 14 (left) Grørestone of Genny Waterman, 7773, Nortb Buriøl Grcund, Providence. Pbotogroph by tbe author,

Figure 15 Gravestone oJ Sylvîø Pogett, 1769, North Burial Ground, Prcvidence. Photograpb by

tbe autbor, subservience while it aggrandizes Henry Paget, As a result, many slaves engaged in stable but srygests that it was the owner's family who informal "Negro marriages" without the beneÊc commissioned Pero's marker, though very likely of matrimony.ø But whether or not Pero and out ofa sense ofresponsibiliry and longstanding Genny's marriage was sancdoned by the state, afFection for their slave. the use of the term"wiË'on these stones suggests The master-referential language inscribed that Pero Pagett dictated the wording of the on Pero's grâvestone, however, is profoundly inscriptions. Apparendy Pero and Genny were different from the wording on the 1773 able to accumulate the funds to commission the 'Waterman, gravestone of Pero's wife, Genny familys Êrst two gravestones on their own terms; andthe 17 69 gravestone of their daughter Sylvia but when Pero himself died, someone else chose (figures 14 and 15): "In Memory of Genny very different language for his marker. Waterman, Wife of Pero Pagen, Negros. She The Africans who labored at the College Edi- died Feb. the 9th [?],L773 in the 49th [?]Year Êce never made it into the history books. Save for of her Agel"'In Memory of Sylvia Daughter of Pero, we know nothing of them other tfian their Pero Pagett and Jane his Wife, dyd May L5, jobs, the wages paid for their labor, and the names 1769. AgedIS yearsl' of their owners. But by stepping away Êom their Here, on his own familys gravestones, Pero work site to visit the Nonh Burial Ground, we Pagea appropriated the use, and with it the cen get some sense of Peros life beyond the re- dig"iay, of his owner's last name. No mention flected image of his owner. In addition to being a is made of Henry Paget, either by name or by favored slave, Pero was a husband and father who reference to Pero's stanrs es a servant, Indeed, oudivedhis wife andtheir daughter; and although the only references to relationships on these he lived in bondagø he managed to memorialize stones are to the marital relationship of Pero his family on his own terms, widr digniÊed, sub- Pagea and his wife Genny, or Jane, and the stancial gravestones. Viewing these gravestones as relationship of their daughter. The couple may historical evidence of life in eighteenth-century or may not have been married "in the white Rhode Island heþs illuminate our understanding manney''under Rhode Island law. Slave owners of slave labor at the College EdiÊca were reluctant to permit their slaves to merry, es a slave's family concerns would almost certainly For more information ønd educationøl materiøIs on compete with the demands of his or her master. tbis subject, go to www.rihs,org, 8. The surname"Mingo" is found under 1, John Brown was described laying corne¡stone with a crew oftwenty in the heading"Blacks" in the LTT4PJtode the Providence Gøzette oÉMa.y 3O' I77O, Island census, but William Míngo is not For a description ofthe building under listed there as a head ofhousehold. Gazette, construcdon, see the Provídence 9, Henry R. Chace, Map of Providence, R,L, 1770. Sept.8, 1 650 - 17 6 5.17 7 0 (Providence, 1914), plate III. 2, John Wood Sw eet, Bodies Politic: tbe Nortb, Negotíating Race ln Americøn 10. In Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, Prcttidence 1730-1830 (Bakirnore: Johns Hopkins in Colonlal Times (New York: Houghton Universicy Ptess, 2003), Miflin, 1912), 176, Henry Paget is 3.rbid,t74. described as'ân Irishman and active member in King's Church"' 4. Reuben A, GuiId,EarQ Historl oJBrcwn (Jr;iversitl (Providence, 1897), 139-40. 11,'An Inventory of the Personal Estate of Henry Paget Esqr.... who departed this 5. A detailed description of the life the ñfteenth day oÍJrnuary L772i' construction ofthe College EdiÊce can Will Book, 6:39-42, Providence City be found in Lawrence C' Wroth,"The Archives, Construction of the College Ediñcø 177 0-1772',' an unpublished manuscript 12. The photograph ofHenry Pagett in the Brown University Archives. gtavestone in the Farber Gravestone See also Malcolm Freiberg"Brown Collection of the America4 Antiquarian Universiryt First'College Ediftcel" Old Sociery incorrectly identifres its TímeNew England 50 (April-June 1960): location as the North Burial Ground in 85-93. For a price-6xing agreement, Providence. R*les see Providence C xpenrers, Jor 13, The funds pledged for buílding the tbe Town of House Carpenters Worh in college in Newport were actually (Providence, 1796). Proü dence greacer than those pledged for building 6,"The College to Nicholas Brown it in Providence, but the advocates & Co,, Dr.; 1770-177L:'MS'LE l, for Providence carried the day by Miscellaneous Papers concerning Rhode pointing out that the additional cost of Island Collegø 17 6?.L804, vol, ItllI' transpofting lumber to Newport from Brown University Archives. A facsimile the forests ofnorthern Rhode Island ofthis document can be found ac http:// would render the Providence offer more dl.lib.brown.edu/reposirory/repoman. valuable, php?verb= render ê.id=1098447 55125 14,'A List ofSubscriptions for the College 0000, EdiÊcei' 77 69 -1772, Brown Family

7. Wroth,"Construction of the College Papers, B 1196 F.8, John Carter Brown Edifrcei' Library, Providence. (i {''¡ ri / &i' {,{ft o t' f/ t6{ n{, ,/r,r,',,',ù'uoL,, /,,

rt Íaùo*''''/'[a'u/o'l (i l-a--I t vû'ttaSlrt'l- \ r tf.'V;;n, ,Q''il*'-'ttt'tltit fo'¡ ' ' ' '! '1t" iÚ iuor;¿ 'r/À rc {o lr.rr, bn-rl,àif, _,

15. The announcement ran in theProvidence Gazette on sevenl days, starting on Jan, ;t( r!,/,,1",.^! ,, r,nî 12,1770.

16."Subscriptions for the College EdificeJ' 17. Ibid. ufr'i¡r* i?,f'¿ IS.SeeRbode Islønd Hktory 41(May 1984): ¿"? 47. ;'lo !ù{rtto"e'/*

19. Ibid. 20,Sweet, Bodies Politic, 100. r+.,JØûfifi^' ^ - ".f 2I. Sw eet, Bo díes P olitic, 99 -1oo,

22, Lorenzo J, Greene, "Some Observations on the Black Regiment of Rhode Island in the American Revo\ationi'Journal of Negro History 37 (Aptil L952)r 142.

23. Reuben Aldrich Guild, History of Brown Uníversity, witb Illusfiøtive Docutteflts (Providence, 1867), 236 -37,

24, Wroth,"Construcdon of the College EdiÊceí2L5.

25. See note 6.

26,Sweet, Bodies Politic, L58, Ltt¿", " lf' '

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