2023 WaterWatch Lecture - Slavery and Black Life in North River Communities, 1673-1865
With Wayne Tucker, Eleven Names Project
In 1673, Scituate shipbuilder Walter Briggs purchased Maria, an African child, from a Boston widow. For the next 110 years, slavery was a legal, widespread, and a mundane fact of life in the communities surrounding the North River. Local shipyards exploited enslaved labor. Ships built in the region transported enslaved people, and increased eighteenth-century demand for new ships created by the business of slavery was an economic boon for the area. Enslaved women worked in local households, men worked as blacksmiths, tanners, and farmers, and children were separated from their mothers and trafficked to other homes and towns. This presentation will examine slavery in North River communities, connect local landmarks to slavery, highlight service by Black Revolutionary soldiers, reveal early African American activism, and probe Black life after Massachusetts abolished slavery.