Delete comment from: Boston 1775
That's correct: the 1790 census in Massachusetts counted no slaves. By then the Quock Walker precedent seems to have taken hold in the public mind, giving employers and officials incentives not to report slavery. Did that mean there were no remnants of the institution left in the state?
Samuel Adams owned title to an enslaved woman named Surry starting "about the year 1765," according to his family. She remained in the household for "nearly half a century," well after the Walker decision. The family's 1865 account of the legal relationship with her is a bit muddy and self-absolving: "When the institution of slavery was formally abolished in Massachusetts, though she had long been free, additional papers were made out for her: but she threw them into the fire, indignantly remarking that she had lived too long to be trifled with in that manner."
So was Surry working for wages, for room and board, for room and board plus the promise of lifetime employment and care? Some enslaved workers distrusted sudden emancipation because they thought their masters were trying to get out of that last obligation. How was Surry "free" for a long time before this moment, yet still affected by the court case and in need of "additional papers"?
I don't know if there are records to clarify the situation in the Adams household. But it seems like a good illustration of how an institution like slavery doesn't end overnight. It dribbles out. Which, I guess, is also one of the lessons of "Juneteenth."
Jun 22, 2006, 5:13:00 PM
Posted to end of slavery in Massachusetts