What follows is the final post related to Hatfield’s New Year’s Day commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In it,  guest blogger Glenda Flynn reflects upon Hatfield slave Amos Newport, as written about by Robert Romer in both the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the alumni magazine of Amherst College, where he is an emeritus professor of physics.

By Glenda Flynn

Amos Newport: the story of a brave man who fled from his owner on a southern plantation under the cover of night to catch the Underground Railroad heading North in pursuit of freedom and a better life.  He must have done something special after he was freed in order to be the focus of an editorial written by Robert Romer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette on Jan. 17, 2011, in celebration of Martin Luther King Day. At least that is what I thought when I was asked to read excerpts of that article for this event. It was supposed to be a simple reading – quick and easy. But, when I received a copy of the article, the story that it told was very different from the one that I had expected, and a true display of my ignorance.

Did you know that in the early 1700s there were slaves working on plantations in Hatfield? Our history books tell us about the early settlers of Hatfield who were farmers drawn by the fertile soil along the banks of the Connecticut River. We have been told about the first and second meeting houses, which were the ancestors of the First Congregational Church we are standing in now. We know about the stockade that was built to protect the first families from Indian attacks. But our town history essentially skips over the fact that there were slaves who worked the land here. Actually, very little is known about the slaves in Hatfield. The only evidence we have comes from tracking the financial records of farm owners documenting the purchase or sales of Negro men, women and children.

According to Robert Romer, author of the book Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts, Amos Newport was born in Africa around 1715.  He was captured as a boy and taken to America on a slave ship, eventually arriving in Springfield as the property of David Ingersoll. Ingersoll then sold him in 1729 to Joseph Billing of Hatfield. At that time, he would have been 14 years old.  “Very little is known about Amos’s life in Hatfield,” says Romer, “except for the very important fact that in 1766,  Amos decided that he did not want to be a slave any longer and went to court to sue for his freedom.”  He would have been around 51 years old.

Romer’s article reports that there were a number of “freedom suits” by Massachusetts slaves around this time, and many of them were successful because the slave could produce evidence that a previous owner had promised his or her freedom. “But Amos made no such claim – he simply wanted to be free. Billing produced a bill of sale, properly executed and witnessed in 1729,” says Romer, which read, in part, “ ‘I David Ingersoll… have sold & delivered a certain young Negro Boy… for consideration of fifty pounds to Joseph Billing of Hatfield…’.  The jury had no choice but to conclude that Amos was indeed a slave belonging to Joseph Billing.”  Romer reports that Amos appealed the decision to the highest court in the province, but unfortunately, the Superior Court simply confirmed the decision of the lower court.

“Even though Amos never did become free,” says Romer, “he tried, through every legal means available to him, and even the act of filing those two court cases probably contributed in some small way to the gradual ending of slavery in this state during the last two decades of the 1700s.”  Romer goes on to tell us that Amos’s son did gain freedom and the Newport family became important to the fabric of the local community. Amos’s son and grandson were founding members of Hope Church on Gaylord Street in Amherst, which was originally an all-black church dedicated in 1912.

Slavery in Massachusetts

Reading Mr. Romer’s article caused me to wonder about slavery in Massachusetts. During a search of the Internet, including Douglas Harper’s “Slavery in the North” website, I discovered that Massachusetts was the first slave-holding colony in New England. Slavery is said to have predated the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Samuel Maverick, apparently New England’s first slaveholder, arrived in Massachusetts in 1624 and owned two Negroes. However, the first certain historical reference to African slavery is in connection with the Pequot War in 1637. Of the few Indians who escaped slaughter during that conflict, the women and children were enslaved in New England. But most of the men and boys, deemed too dangerous to keep in the colony, were transported to the West Indies and exchanged for salt, cotton, tobacco and black slaves.

Massachusetts merchant ships were supplying slaves to Connecticut by 1680 and to Rhode Island by 1696. The expansion of New England industries in the early 1700s created a shortage of labor, which slaves filled. From fewer than 200 slaves in 1676, and 550 in 1708, the Massachusetts slave population jumped to about 2000 just seven years later in 1715.

Although Massachusetts, like many American colonies, had roots in scrupulous fundamentalist Protestantism, this was not a barrier to slave ownership. The Puritans regarded themselves as God’s Elect. Their Calvinist doctrine of predestination supported the Puritan belief that blacks were a people cursed and condemned by God to serve whites. Cotton Mather told blacks that they were the “miserable children of Adam and Noah,” for whom slavery had been ordained as a punishment.

The story of Amos Newport is not the story of a slave from the South. It is the story of a man who dreamed of freedom as he plowed the fields that we now call home. Historical accounts of slavery in Hatfield are meager because slaves were considered property. They were valued only for their ability to get work done. Amos Newport’s story is a part of our history. It is our responsibility as parents, mentors and human beings to recognize the atrocities that have been committed in the past, fight to resolve similar situations of human trafficking in our present, and  take action to ensure that our children and our children’s children treat the people of the world with respect and dignity. We are all God’s people.

*What follows is my talk from Hatfield’s commemoration yesterday of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863. In it, I describe the little we know about Hatfield's slaves.

Like other Connecticut Valley towns in the 1700s and perhaps into the 1800s, Hatfield had slaves. We don’t know how many men were slaveholders in Hatfield, or how many slaves they owned, but we know they were men of prestige and wealth – such as those holding high positions in the militia, or ministers or deacons of the church.

Slaveholder Israel Williams, for instance, was commander of a Hampshire County regiment defending western Massachusetts in both King George's and the French and Indian Wars. He was also a Hatfield Selectman, a state legislator, and a Hampshire County judge. His cousin, slaveholder Major Ephraim Williams Jr., was a military leader in the French and Indian War, and the founder of Williams College. Slaveholder William Williams was the minister of Hatfield for more than 50 years, from 1686 to 1741. Slaveholder Joseph Billings was a deacon of the church of Hatfield. Likewise, the “bills of sale” for their slaves were witnessed and signed by other Hatfield men of high standing – such as Oliver and Samuel Partridge and Elisha Wells.

We know very little about the slaves themselves, though. Where we know anything, it is hardly more than first names and ages, typically as noted in a bill of sale or a will passing ownership to next of kin.

Robert Romer, author of the book, Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts, notes on his website that he found some 21 slaves living on the Main St. of Deerfield in 1752—about 7% out of a population of 300. Did Hatfield have a similar percentage of slaves living and working here? Who were they?

That is why the few “bills of sale” and “notes in wills” that have survived become precious, because they are all we have to validate the lives of African American Hatfield residents forced to live as slaves. What follows are four bills of sale – all for children or young adults – the first and last from the “American Centuries” website of Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield (bill of sale links to come later). The middle two (plus the last), I found on Google Books, in Vol. 2 of A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts by George Sheldon, 1896:

The first is for a young girl named Kate (aged 8 or 9), sold by Samuel Kent of Suffield to Capt. Israel Williams of Hatfield, in late May, 1734. To see the actual bill of sale, click HERE. From that link, click on “Show Text” at right to read the text.

The second is for a 9-yr-old boy named Prince, sold by Ephraim Williams to Israel Williams of Hatfield in late September, 1750:

For and in consideration of the sum of 225 pounds Old Tenor to me, Ephraim Williams Jr., well & truly paid by Israel Williams, Esq. of Hatfield, I do hereby assign, sell & convey to him a certain negro boy named Prince aged about 9 years, a servant for life to hold to him, his heirs against ye claims of any person whatsoever, as witness my hand this 25th day of September,  [Anno Domi] 1750.
                                      Eph Williams Jr.


The third is for a 16-yr-old girl named Blossom, sold by Hezekiah Whitmore of Middleboro to Israel Williams of Hatfield in late May, 1753, “To serve him, his heirs and assigns for and During ye full term of her natural life.”

And in the last, John Charles Jr. of Brimfield sells “my negro boy named J Romanoo, aged about 16 years,” to Major Ephraim Williams Jr. of Hatfield in February 1755, seven months before Maj. Williams would be killed leading a regiment in the French and Indian War.

He goes on to say that he is the rightful owner and that his slave shall now be the sole property of Ephraim “against the claim and challenge of any other person, and all Rightful Pretensions of his own, to Freedom, by any law or right whatsoever.”

How long did slavery last in our Valley?

Several Mass. court cases testing the validity of slavery took place nearly 30 years later, in 1783, finding against the slaveholders, but those cases did not make slavery illegal, according to Robert Romer. In fact, no attention was paid to them in any Massachusetts papers that he has found. Nor was there a definite time at which slavery ended, or became illegal, in Mass., he says, as slaves were taxed as property in the tax lists of 1784, and found in wills at least until the late 1780s.

In the will of Joseph Billings of Hatfield, for instance, set down May 6, 1783 – this from notes collected by an unknown researcher in a record book donated to the Historical Museum by the Whately Historical Society:

In it, he states it is his will that “Peter my negro man Servant shall be from and after my decease manumitted and set free – also the children of the said Peter [viz Jonah Peter. Elephalet & Amos] shall be manumitted and set-free as soon as they respectively shall reach the age of 21. In the meantime to be under the control of and detained in the immediate service of my cousins David and Silas.”

He adds that if any of his Negros should fall into poverty, then his cousins David & Silas should provide for them.

Bringing the hidden to light

We know so little about Hatfield’s role in this dark side of our country’s history, but we can start to find out. Going forward, the Historical Society in general, and those of us who work in the Historical Museum in particular, will try to learn more about the slaves who lived and worked here, and include their stories – along with the settlers, the soldiers and the waves of immigrants – as part of the history of our town.

A good start will be the first program of the Hatfield Historical Society for the coming year, when Northampton Historian Steve Strimer gives a presentation on “Slavery in the Connecticut River Valley.” Mr. Strimer is the co-founder of the David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies. His talk will take place Thursday, March 21, at 7:30 in the Church Parlors of the First Congregational Church of Hatfield, on Main St. Please join us.

If you’re interested in helping us research slavery in Hatfield, and/or have any documents or artifacts related to Hatfield slavery you’d be willing to loan or donate to the Historical Museum for an exhibit, please let me know!

In June 2011 I attended Mass Humanities’ Mass History Conference at Holy Cross, at which Elise Lemire (SUNY Purchase Professor of Literature and author of Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts) gave the keynote address on Northern slavery. I have been thinking about it ever since.

While acknowledging that more research and books about Northern slavery – like Robert Romer’s Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts – are available today, and more communities are offering public programming on the topic (like Deerfield, with Mr. Romer’s assistance), she asked us to remember that:

“most Northern communities have not unearthed, much less made available, information about slavery’s existence in their towns. Many communities prefer to busy themselves telling other stories, particularly stories that make them feel good about themselves.”

Like the Underground Railroad.

“While the Underground Railroad is certainly an important part of the history of American slavery,” she said, “and the North’s participation in its demise, helping southern slaves run away isn’t the only role the North played in slavery’s history. Before there was an underground railroad, there was 150 years of slave history in Massachusetts.”

Thought not acted on until today -- Jan. 1, 2013 -- Ms. Lemire’s words stuck into my brain that day when she said, “despite the region-wide attempt to erase the signs of enslaved people in the North, everything a town or an organization needs to tell or present a coherent history of Northern slavery is, in fact, still available if we know where and how to look.” She entreated all of us in attendance that day to take the first step in unearthing those stories and to make them available for all to see.

That first step happened today, a year and a half later, as Hatfield celebrated the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation with a nondenominational service titled “Let Freedom Ring!,” hosted by and in the First Congregational Church of Hatfield.

We heard about child Hatfield slaves, about the prestigious town fathers who owned them, about personal responses; we heard part of President Lincoln’s Proclamation, read by Mark Gelotte, and what Lincoln was feeling that day, in an excerpt from Louis Masur’s great Smithsonian article, read by Smith Academy senior Andrew Poirer. We were led in the singing of African American spirituals by Rev. Peter Kakos of the Congregational Church, and led in prayer by Father Robert Coonan of Our Lady of Grace Parish, while Jonathan Bardwell, who restored the steeple and the church/town bell so it could be rung by hand at community events such as this (funded by a Community Preservation Grant), led the community ringing of the bell. At 2 pm, the time of the signing by President Lincoln 150 years ago today, we all helped toll the bell more than 150 times!

Let this day mark our pledge, mine and others, to honor Hatfield’s slaves and their sacrifices, by telling their stories.

Tomorrow’s post will start this process by giving my talk, with links to bills of sale for Hatfield slaves. And the following day’s post will give Glenda Flynn’s response to and recap of Robert Romer’s story of Amos Newport, a Hatfield slave.

With these humble beginnings, we ask the community to help us bring these stories and artifacts of Hatfield slavery into the light, where they can be shared with all.

  I stopped in Saturday at the museum to drop off a few things. Jan Phaneuf was hosting. Two family groups came up to visit while I was there, but she’d had a long visit from a man whose relative had been billeted (provided nonmilitary housing) in Hatfield during the early 1700s, and he was wondering where. His descendant had been described as a “winter soldier,” and we wondered what that meant. Did it have anything to do with being a farmer, perhaps, and volunteering to soldier when not in the growing season – some type of Armed Forces Reserve?

After a brief online search, it seemed more likely to reference a term that grew out of a Thomas Paine essay titled The Crisis first published as a pamphlet in December 1776. This is the essay that begins with the well-known line, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” In the second winter of the war, the essay chastises soldiers and others who are faint of heart in pursuing their cause, and states:

“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us that, the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

A “winter soldier,” in contrast, is one who will continue to fight for his or her cause when the going gets tough. Paine continues, “lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.”

If this visitor’s descendant was a “winter soldier” of this type lodging in Hatfield, I, also, am curious to know where. You just never know down what road a trip to the museum will lead you.