The Colonial Society of Massachusetts October Volume , Number Conference on New England Slavery and the Slave Trade Breaks New Ground ECENT CONFERENCES sponsored by retary, Elaine Paul, upon whom all the arrangements the Colonial Society have acquired a reputa- fell most heavily. R tion for opening new fields of scholarly The intellectual success of the conference was endeavor, and this past spring’s Conference on New surely the result of its talented and well connected England Slavery and the Slave Trade, held April - , Program Committee, composed of Ira Berlin of the was no exception. Former Council Member Robert University of Maryland as chair, ably supported by Hall first suggested the idea over five years ago, and James Horton of George Washington University and gradually the concept won a remarkable number of Joanne Melish of the University of Kentucky. Each cosponsors, including our Beacon Hill neighbors, the member of the Program Committee spoke at the Museum of Afro-American History; the National opening session on Wednesday, April . Ira Berlin Park Service; Old South Meeting House; the began with a brief introduction on “The Significance Omohundro Institute of Early American History and of Slavery in New England,” followed by a dynamic Culture; Suffolk University; and the W.E.B. DuBois address from James Horton on the impact of the Institute for Afro-American Research. American Revolution on slavery and racial identities After an opening session at Old South Meeting in New England. Joanne Melish concluded with “The House, concurrent presentations took place at the Vernaculars of Slavery and Race in New England,” Boston Athenæum and Suffolk University Law illustrating just how fluid such categories could be in School. Thus, all events were within easy walking the early republic. distance of the Parker House, where conference par - On Thursday and Friday, participants had to make ticipants were housed courtesy of the Colonial an often difficult choice between concurrent sessions Society. On April , the Colonial Society gave a at the Athenæum and Suffolk Law School. The prox - reception for speakers, commentators, and their imity of the two venues even made it possible for the spouses at its Mount Vernon Street headquarters truly undecided to shuttle back and forth between followed by a festive dinner at the Union Club. Local locations. The first session at Suffolk Law School con - arrangements for the conference were the work of cerned African American slavery in New England, Beverly Morgan Welch of the Museum of Afro- beginning with Linda Heywood and John Thornton American History; Marty Blatt of the National Park of Boston University on “The Removal of ‘Cannibal Service; Robert Allison, Robert Bellinger, and Beth Negroes’ from New England to Providence Island.” Bower of Suffolk University; and Fellow Member Lois Brown of Mount Holyoke retold the story of an Marilyn Richardson and Editor John Tyler repre - African, Sebastian Kayne of Boston, who purchased senting the Colonial Society. Special thanks are due the freedom of Anna Keayne’s servant, Angola, with to Beth Bower, Archivist at Suffolk University Law his own labor, a rare example of African legal agency School, and the Colonial Society’s indefatigable sec - in Massachusetts courts. Richard A. Bailey of the The Colonial Society of Massachusetts University of Kentucky concluded the session with an Peter Hinks examined the career of William Lanson examination of the issues of conscience faced by a of New Haven, an African American entrepreneur of slave-owning Puritan divine. the s. Bryan Rommel-Ruiz of Colorado College Meanwhile at the Athenaeum, conference partici - explored African colonization movements in both pants heard a session on “Slavery and the Law in New Rhode Island and Nova Scotia during the Revolu- England,” with papers by James J. Allegro of Western tionary period. Reserve University on “The Idea of New England The abolitionist movement enjoyed its first flower - Slavery: Slave Law, Self-Government, and the ing during the early years of the Republic, a fact marked Glorious Revolution in Massachusetts, New York and by another late afternoon session at Suffolk Law Maryland,” Paul Finkelman of the University of Tulsa School. Matthew Mason of Brigham Young University Law School on “Ending Slavery in New England: The explored the links between the Federalist Party and the Interaction of Law and Social Forces,” and Emily early abolitionists. Joe Lockard of Arizona State Blanck of Rowan University on “The Legal University illustrated Justice Joseph Story’s attitudes Emancipations of Leander and Caesar: Manumission about slavery were considerably more ambivalent than and the Law in Revolutionary South Carolina and his famous “Charge to the Maine Grand Jury” has led Massachusetts.” people to believe, and Celeste Marie Bernier of the After a break for lunch, a session on “Native University of Nottingham (one of several international American Slavery and New England” convened, scholars attending the conference) gave a paper on including a number of familiar faces from the CSM “Spectacle, Rhetoric and the Slave Body in New conference on “Reinterpreting New England Indians England and British Anti-Slavery Oratory.” and the Colonial Experience” held at Sturbridge in The Friday morning session at Suffolk Law . Ruth Wallace Herndon of the University of looked at New England’s role in the slave trade. Toledo and Ella Wilcox Sekatau, Narragansett Tribal Rachel Chernos Lin of Brown University, who spoke Historian, continued their research into the de facto at a regular CSM meeting two years ago, advanced slavery created by Rhode Island laws governing pauper several reasons why she thought Rhode Island apprentices, which fell particularly hard on Native emerged as “leader of the pack” [her words] in the Americans. Daniel Mandell, speaking about “Freedom slave trade. Simon Smith of the University of York, and Conflicts over Class Gender and Identity: The UK, looked at Hugh Hall, who carried on the slave Evolving Relationship between Indians and Blacks in trade in both Boston and Barbados, as an example of Southern New England, - ” offered some seventeenth-century gentry capitalism among family points of difference with Joanne Melish’s address of members of England’s landed classes. George Brooks the night before. Margaret Newell of Ohio State of Indiana University used the career of Samuel University was scheduled to comment on the session Hodges Jr., U.S. consul to the Cape Verde Islands but volunteered to make a preliminary presentation of during the second and third decades of the nine - her own research after one member of the panel can - teenth century, to reveal various ways in which the celled at the last minute. Anglo-American ban on the international slave trade The afternoon session at the Athenæum involved was easily evaded. screening a soon-to-be-released documentary film: Appropriately enough, the final session of the con - “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” ference at the Boston Athenæum focused on “The chronicling the extensive involvement of the De Wolfe Memory of Slavery in New England.” John Wood family of Bristol, Rhode Island, in the slave trade, even Sweet of the University of North Carolina, another after the importation of slaves into the United States speaker familiar to CSM audiences, examined the was formally banned in . Katrina Browne, the pro - early nineteenth century Narrative of Venture Smith ducer of the film and a De Wolfe descendant, was on as a document written primarily to remind the free hand to answer questions and moderate a discussion black community of New England of the horrors of on the some of the controversial questions raised in the slavery before such details passed from collective film, such as reparations. memory. Patrick Rael of Bowdoin College delivered a An important part of the conference centered on paper on the ways in which free people of color in the the experiences of free people of color in New England North tended to link their own history with the older in the early years of emancipation. In a late afternoon Puritan idea of America as a divinely elected exemplar session at Suffolk Law School, independent scholar of freedom to the rest of the world. The Colonial Society of Massachusetts Ephemeral, but nonetheless essential, components Saillant of Western Michigan University, and John of the conference were the comments offered at each Stauffer of Harvard University. session. For this important task, the Program Com- The conference certainly created a favorable “buzz” mittee had assembled an all-star cast of leaders in the not only in academic circles, but also in the pages of field: Peter Benes of Boston University, David Blight the Boston Globe (with an article by Sam Allis, son of of Yale University, David Eltis of Emory University, the CSM’s previous Editor of Publications Fritz Allis) Annette Gordon-Reed of New York Law School, John and even on National Public Radio. Quincy Project By Daniel R. Coquillette N AUGUST th, your Editor, John Tyler, primarily by Dan Coquillette, will contain Quincy’s met with our fellow members, Dan Law Common-Place , also never before published, OCoquillette and Neil York, to discuss the final together with the Voyage to the South ( ) and schol - publication of the Quincy Project. This is the culmina - arly introductions to each. Finally, Dan Coquillette has tion of a major research effort, resulting in four reannotated and edited Quincy’s Law Reports , cover - volumes, including important unpublished pre- ing the period - , the earliest American law revolutionary material. Together with the Bernard reports. These contain cases of the greatest impor - Papers, now being edited by Dr. Colin Nicolson, and tance, including disputes about the sale of slaves, the the Editor’s own Hutchinson Papers , this project will execution of unwed mothers, the rights of women to allow a contextual view of the American Revolution contract and inherit, the right of jury trial, the that was never before possible.