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Cuffee Josselyn and the Aftermath of Slavery in Hanover, Massachusetts
There is no reason to believe, until scholarship says otherwise, that, given the racial climate of the post-Revolutionary era, Black paupers did not face unique sets of challenges when navigating the slavery-to-pauper pipeline.
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Abington Legend Cuffy Rosaria
Cuffy Rosaria deserves folk hero status in Abington; he has the rare distinction of appearing both in a run-away slave ad and in Revolutionary War muster rolls.
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The Abington Patriot Who Witnessed a British Spy’s Execution
This is the remarkable story of an African American teenager fighting in the Revolution, of a young soldier suffering a life-altering wound and witnessing an historic execution, and of a disabled veteran fighting for benefits.
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Norwell, Massachusetts: Nexus of Black Patriotism
The leafy, lilly-white Massachusetts town of Norwell is a remarkable nexus of early Black American patriotism. It’s a place where Black Revolutionary War veterans left slavery, started, and whose descendants served in the Civil War.
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Caesar Watson of Plymouth and His Freedom Suit
In which Founding Father Robert Treat Paine and merchant Elkanah Watson, Sr. get crushed in court by Caesar, a Black man, and his attorney Benjamin Kent. Caesar accused Watson of assaulting him, unjustly imprisoning him, and enslaving him.
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Meet Venus Manning of South Scituate, Massachusetts
Venus Manning was likely born into slavery in Scituate, Massachusetts. She eventually became one of the wealthiest single women in what is now Norwell and used her money to fund abolitionist causes.
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Primas languished and died of consumption
1739: Isaac Little of Pembroke sues Stephen Andrews for fraud. Andrews sold Little an enslaved man named Primas who was sick with consumption.
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Primas, diseased with a swelling in his throat
1731: Primas “languished and within three months” of his sale, he died.
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Imposing himself on her for the said John her husband
1740: Guiney, “”a Negro Slave of Joshua Drew of Plymouth…broke up that part of…Drew’s house in which Rebecca, wife of Jonathan Davenport, dwells and wickedly attempted to debauch…Rebecca by imposing himself on her for the said John her husband”.
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The sentence of whipping immediately executed upon her
1722: Sarah Boyce of Pembroke, “singlewoman” gave birth to “a bastard child” in 1716 and confessed that “Squire, a negro man, was the father”. The “court ordered her to be publically whipped 10 stripes and to pay fees and charges”.
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Eleven Names Project 