December 14, 2016 • 27 mins
After she became a free woman, Belinda Sutton successfully petitioned for compensation for her years of enslaved labor. This was one of many legal efforts of enslaved and formerly enslaved people to advocate for themselves in Massachusetts courts.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This October, Holly,
you and I had a pretty exciting time on the
podcast because you came to visit me. I did. I
(00:24):
brought camera and sound people, you did. I mean it
sound like this was like just the trip for funzies,
but no, it was a trip to basically go on
a video recording extravaganza field trip with two of our
How Stuff Works video crew, Casey and Paul, and the
four of us spent a lot of time over three
days interviewing people and recording videos and seeing amazing historical sites. Uh.
(00:49):
It was both fun and exhausting. Super exhausting, but super
uper fun. Yeah. I think even more exhausting for Casey
and Paul. They did so much of the heavy lifting
by nature of being the video and sound people, as
both literally and figuratively, they did a lot of heavy lifting. Yes, yes,
you and I helped carry whenever we could, but you know,
(01:11):
we can't be in front of the camera and also
holding it. That doesn't really work with our setup. So
the first stop that we made was at the Royal
House and slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts, and the Royal
House was home to Isaac Royal and his family during
the eighteenth century, and the Royals were the largest slave
ownly slave owning family in Massachusetts, and they had an
(01:33):
enslaved workforce both at their Medford home and on sugar
plantations in Antiguo, which is a big part of how
the Royals made all that money. There is already a
video on our website that tells more of the story
of the Royals and their enslaved worked workforce and how
those lives intertwined together on the property, and we're going
(01:53):
to put a link to it in the show notes
and on our social media and all of that kind
of stuff when this episode comes out. There are also
of more videos already out and coming soon from that trip,
which we are really excited about and will also be
sharing on our website and social media um as those
are ready. Today's episode of the podcast is also inspired
(02:15):
by our trip to the Royal House Museum. There's a
lot that we don't know about the people who were
enslaved when it was still a home, and there's documentation
for about sixty enslaved people over two generations of royal
ownership there on the Massachusetts property, but the actual number
was probably quite a lot higher. One enslaved woman in
(02:36):
particular stands out, Belinda Sutton, who successfully petitioned for compensation
for her years of enslaved labor on the royal property.
And by the time Belinda petition for compensation, the Royal
family was already incredibly wealthy. And just for clarity, I
feel like we should point out that when we say
(02:57):
the Royals again, it's our O Y A L L.
It's a proper name. Even though you mentioned that his
name was Isaac Royal. We just want to make entirely
clear they were not actual royalty. Uh. And this family
was by this point incredibly wealthy, but they did not
start out incredibly wealthy. Isaac Royal Senior born sixteen seventy
(03:18):
two came from a New England family of relatively modest means,
but that changed after he purchased a sugar plantation in Antigua.
This was during the era of the Triangle trade, that
interconnected trading system that relied on enslaved Africans crops like
sugar and cotton, and products made from those crops like
(03:40):
rum and cloth. By trading mainly in rum, sugar, and
enslaved Africans, Isaac Royal Senior became very wealthy. It's a
common misperception that in North America only the southern economy
relied on slavery, but in reality, a lot of the
wealth in New England and other the other orderly areas
(04:01):
was connected directly to the slave trade and on industries
that relied on slave labor. For a time, the royal
family actually lived in Antigua, but in seventeen thirty seven,
Isaac Sr. Decided to relocate back to New England, and
his reasons for doing so were not specifically recorded, but
we do know that the year before, a series of
(04:21):
gruesome executions had been carried out on Antigua in response
to the threat of a slave revolt. Whether this revolt
really was in the works continues to be the subject
of some historical debate, and it certainly would not have
been the first occurrence of a slave resistance effort on
the island. If it was. An enslaved man known as
(04:42):
Prince Class confessed to having planned a massive uprising that
would not only have overthrown the island's planters, but also
would have massacred its white population. However, there isn't much
physical evidence to support the idea that such a vast
uprising was really imminent, so while some historians are completely
(05:03):
convinced that it was, others suspect that the white slave
owners and the court, who were vastly outnumbered by the
island's enslaved population, exaggerated what was actually a much smaller threat,
possibly as a product of their own fear. The executions, however,
were definitely real, with five people being broken on a wheel,
(05:24):
six gibbeted, and seventy seven burned at the stake. One
of the royals enslaved overseers was among those burned at
the stake, and another was reprieved at the stake in
exchange for information he had so it. While it's not
written down anywhere exactly what prompted them to go back
(05:46):
to New England, it's pretty reasonable to suspect that the
Royals went back because they feared for their safety. To
prepare for the family's arrival back in Massachusetts, Isaac Royal
Senior bought a piece of property Medford just called ten
Hills Farm, and this was a five hundred acre property
that housed a colonial farmhouse, which was expanded into a
(06:09):
three story Georgian mansion. Along with barnes and other outbuildings.
There was also a slave quarters, which still stands today
and is the only freestanding slave housing still left in
the North. The structure that became the slave quarters started
out as an out kitchen or a separate kitchen that
would allow people to cook in hot weather without heating
(06:29):
up the house, and that was standing before the rest
of the quarters were added onto it. The museum on
the property to today includes both the mansion and the
slave quarters, and when the royals took up residence there
at ten Hills Farm, they had at least twenty seven
enslaved Africans with them. Isaac Sr. Died in seventeen thirty nine,
(06:50):
and Isaac Jr. One of his two surviving children, inherited
most of the estate. At this point, the Royals were
one of the wealthiest families in Massachusetts, and Isaac Junior
and his wife Elizabeth were very prominent in society, living
a life of absolute luxury and holding lavish parties, and
for Isaac's part, also holding public office. With the approach
(07:11):
of the Revolutionary War, Isaac Junior fled Massachusetts, leaving his mansion,
most of his physical property, and more than twenty enslaved
people behind. Apparently he had some sympathies with the cause
for independence, but he also had a lot of financial
reasons to stay loyal to the Crown. He tried to
get passage back to Antigua, but he couldn't, and instead
(07:34):
he went to Nova Scotia just before the Battle of
Lexington in seventeen seventy five. A year later, he joined
his daughter's families in England, and he died there of
smallpox in seventeen eighty one. In his will, Isaac Junior
left money to Harvard, which was used to endow the
university's first law professorship. The Shield of Harvard Law School
(07:56):
was for this reason originally modeled after the Royal Family
Code of Arms. The Royal Professorship still exists, but the
Law school agreed to retire the shield and replace it
with a new one in March, and as part of
the same protests that led to this decision, students actually
also occupied a lounge on campus and renamed it Belinda
(08:16):
Hall after Belinda's sutton Who will we will be talking
more about in a moment. Basically, now is the moment
that we will be talking more about her. The moment
has arrived. Uh. Belinda was mentioned in Isaac Jr's will
as well, saying quote, I do also give unto my
said daughter, my negro woman, Belinda, in case she does
(08:36):
not choose her freedom. If she does choose her freedom,
to have it, provided that she gets security that she
shall not be a charge to the town of Medford.
And he also instructed his executor to pay Belinda thirty
pounds for three years. However, by the time of his death,
Isaac Junior actually no longer had a lot of his
(08:56):
property in Massachusetts. A lot of it had been confiscated
during the war, and some of the people who had
been slave there had been enslaved there had been freed,
and others had been sold elsewhere. And later documents, Belinda,
who was referenced in his will, is called Belinda Sutton
a widow, but we don't actually know who her husband
was or when she married him. Some of the earliest
(09:19):
documents that referenced her present her last name is Royal.
But it was common for enslaved people to be given
their owners surnames. Belinda had at least two children, a
son named Joseph and a daughter. We're guessing on the
pronunciation of whether it's prime or prime E, but it's
p R I n E, who were baptized in Medford
(09:39):
in seventeen sixty eight, and it appears that her son
was sold away from her, possibly at the same time
that she was freed. Although the Commonwealth did manument Belinda
along with at least some of the other people who
were confiscated from the royal estate, and they didn't really
make provisions for her her survival afterward, and we will
talk about that led to her petition after a quick
(10:02):
word from a sponsor. When Belinda was freed, she and
her daughter made their way to Boston to try to
start a new life among the free black people living there.
But by this point Belinda was elderly and her daughter
was also not well. Because she had spent most of
(10:23):
her life working for no pay, Belinda had essentially nothing
to live on and no way to support herself and
her daughter. On February fourteen eighty three, Belinda presented a
petition to the Massachusetts General Court. It began quote Commonwealth
of Massachusetts to the Honorable the Senate and House of
(10:45):
Representatives in General Court assembled the petition of Belinda and
African humbly shows that seventy years have rolled away since
she on the banks of the Rio de Volta received
her existence. The mountain covered with spicy forests, the valleys
loaded with the richest fruits spontaneously produced. Joined to that
(11:07):
happy temperature of air to exclude excess, would have yielded
her the most complete felicity, had not her mind received
early impressions of the cruelty of men whose faces were
like the moon, and whose bows and arrows were like
the thunder and the lightning of the clouds. The Rio
de Volta is what's called the Volta River today and
(11:28):
what was at that point known as the Gold Coasts,
and it's now Ghana. That was where Belinda had lived
until about the age of twelve, where as she described
in the petition, she was in a sacred grove with
her parents, paying devotions to Arica and quote an armed
band of white men, driving many of her countrymen in chains,
(11:48):
ran into the hallowed shade. Referring to herself in the
third person, she goes on quote, she was ravished from
the bosom of her country from the arms of her friends,
while the advanced age of her parents, rendering them unfit
for servitude, cruelly separated her from them forever. After she
describes her passage across the Atlantic and her arrival on
(12:11):
a new continent, she states that she worked for fifty
years for Isaac Royal until after the war, before concluding quote,
the face of your petitioner is now marked with the
furrows of time, and her frame feebly bending under the
oppression of years, while she, by laws of the land,
is denied the enjoyment of one morsel of that immense wealth,
(12:33):
a part whereof has been accumulated by her own industry,
and the whole augmented by her servitude. Wherefore, casting herself
at the feet of your honors as to a body
of men formed for the extirpation of vassalage, for the
reward of virtue and the just return of honest industry.
(12:53):
She plus she praised that such allowance maybe made her
out of the estate of Colonel Royal as well prevent
her and her more infirmed daughter from misery and the
greatest extreme and scatter comfort over the short and downward
path of their lives, and she will ever pray so.
In five paragraphs, Belinda describes her childhood and Ghana, her capture,
(13:18):
the middle Passage, her arrival, and the fact that she
spent most of her life helping to build the wealth
of the royal family, when she herself was not allowed
any portion of that wealth or even to own any property.
And she ends by asking for reparations, a payment of
damages for having been wronged, specifically to be taken out
(13:38):
of the estate of the man she worked for without
being compensated for all that time. Some of the petitions
passages aren't necessarily meant to be read completely literally. For example,
the word oricha is yuriba, and it's a word that
means deity, But Yoruba was spoken a little farther west
(13:59):
than the Old Coast, where Belinda would have been from,
so it's not entirely clear where Belinda or perhaps the
person who helped her write this petition might have learned
it or how they might have used it. The description
of Belinda's capture also specifies that her captors were white. However,
it's far more likely that she was initially captured by
(14:19):
other Africans. Further, Inland before being taken to the coast
and sold to white slave traders. You can learn more
about this aspect of the slave trade in our past
podcasts on Dahomey and the Royal Palaces of a Beaumi.
Describing her abductors as white may have been an intentional
effort to appeal to the moral sensibilities of the white judges,
(14:41):
or to resist attempts to shift the blame for slavery
onto Africans who captured the slaves rather than on the
Europeans who created the demand for them. You will still
see people trying to make this argument on the Internet today.
Most likely Belinda herself was illiterate. Her signature on this
and their petitions as an x and her most likely
(15:02):
assistant in creating this petition was a man named Prince Hall.
He had been enslaved from birth around seventeen thirty five,
and then he had been freed in seventeen seventy. After
becoming freed, he became an activist and an abolitionist in Boston,
where he was also the founder of an African Masonic lodge.
He helped author at least two petitions for a general
(15:24):
manumission in Massachusetts, and we will talk a little bit
more about these other petitions that were also presented during
Belinda's life and around the same time a little bit
later in the show. Belinda's petition also quickly became part
of a growing body of anti slavery literature. Quaker abolitionists
distributed copies, and the New Jersey Gazette reprinted it in
(15:46):
its entirety on June eighteenth of seventeen eighty three. Soon
this petition was being reprinted in other newspapers and anti
slavery journals on both sides of the Atlantic. In at
least one British case, there were quite a number of
creative liberties, basically rewriting this legal petition into a slave
narrative in the first person. In terms of the ruling,
(16:10):
Belinda's petition was successful. In seventeen eighty three. The court
awarded her and her daughter an annual pension of fifteen
pounds twelve shillings, to be paid out of the profits
of the royal estate. However, the estate only paid this
pension for a year and then ignored Belinda's repeated requests
for it. In seventeen eighty seven, Belinda went back to
(16:32):
court to try to force the Royal estate to pay
the pension as ordered, and the court once again found
in her favor. The estate did make its payments for
three years before stopping again, leading Belinda back to court
in seventeen ninety and after payments stopped once again, she
had to submit yet another petition in seventeen ninety three,
(16:52):
and once again the ruling was in her favor. From there,
there's really no record of her until Willis Hall, who
had been the executor of Isaac Royal Junior's estate, requested
that he be granted the rest of the money in
the state treasury, saying, quote to family servants who were
left behind end quote, had then died. Presumably one of
(17:13):
the people he is talking about was Belinda, and that
was in Belinda's petition was by far not the first
nor the only petition connected to slavery to be presented
in Massachusetts courts. As we mentioned just a moment ago,
and we're going to talk more about this topic after
we first paused for a word from one of our
fantastic sponsors. Belinda's petition was part of ongoing legal efforts
(17:43):
of enslaved and formally enslaved people to advocate for themselves
through Massachusetts courts. A lot of these were petitions for freedom.
There were enough of those that there are definitely sources
that mr report Belinda's petition as being one for her freedom,
which it was not. The anti slavery petitions Massachusetts Data
Verse at Harvard has a huge collection of anti slavery
(18:07):
and anti segregation documents, including Belinda's petitions online. As early
as seventeen seventy individual enslaved people in Massachusetts were suing
their owners in court for their own freedom, or for
compensation for their labor, or for both, and some of
these suits were in fact successful. Petitions for general freedom
(18:28):
for all people enslaved in Massachusetts started before the Revolutionary
War as well. Enslaved people submitted six different petitions for
general emancipation between seventeen seventy three and seventeen seventy seven alone.
Prince Hall, who probably helped Belinda craft her petition, had
submitted two of these in the late seventeen seventies, asking
for a general emancipation, protection against being kidnapped back into slavery,
(18:53):
financial help for former slaves who wanted to settle in Africa,
and public education access for blacks students. Many of these
early petitions were connected directly to the language the Patriot
Cause was using to frame the Revolutionary War and the
wish for the colonies to be freed from British rule.
They called on the course to recognize that the inalienable
(19:14):
right to freedom was not limited only to white people.
These seventeen seventies petitions prompted one bill to abolish slavery
in Massachusetts, although it was ultimately unsuccessful. Some of the
petitions also drew from the Bible, citing Old Testament passages
requiring the freedom of the freeing of slaves every seven years,
with those freed slaves being compensated. In one case, petitioners
(19:38):
submitted a pamphlet by James Swann, who was a member
of the Sons of Liberty and a participant in the
Boston Tea Party, which attacked slavery from numerous angles, including
the biblical one. It's possible that Belinda's petition was patterned
after or inspired by the petition of Anthony Vassal of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He had submitted a petition in sevent in eighty one
(20:00):
requesting the title to land owned by his former owner,
John Bassel as compensation for his years of unpaid labor
before being enslaved under John Bassell. Anthony and his wife
had lived in Medford, where they had been owned by
Isaac Royal Jr's sister, Penelope Vassel. John Bassel was a
loyalist who had been exiled and whose estate had been confiscated,
(20:23):
and Anthony successfully argued that he was owed reparations for
having worked on that land where his wife and their
children had also been enslaved. Although he wasn't awarded the
title to the land that he asked for, he was
granted an annual pension of twelve pounds out of the
proceeds of the estate. It was in fact court rulings
that would eventually end slavery in Massachusetts. In seventeen eighty one,
(20:46):
Elizabeth Freeman, then known as Mom Bett, successfully sued her
owner for freedom under the grounds that the newly adopted
Massachusetts Constitution forbade it in article one quote, all men
are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential,
and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right
of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, that of acquiring, possessing,
(21:10):
and protecting property in fine that of seeking and obtaining
their safety and happiness. That same year, an enslaved man
known as Walker escaped from Nathaniel Jennison, and when Jennison
found Walker, he beat him, leading Walker to sue him
for assault and battery. This led to a series of countersuits,
(21:30):
ending with Commonwealth versus Jennison in seventeen eighty three. During
the instructions to the jury, Chief Justice Cushing stated, quote,
and upon this ground, our constitution of government, by which
the people of the of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves,
sets out with declaring that all men are born free
and equal, and that every subject is entitled to liberty
(21:53):
and to have it guarded by the laws, as well
as life and property. And in short, is totally repugnant
to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case,
I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our
own conduct and constitution. There can be no such thing
as perpetual servitude of a rational creature unless his liberty
(22:16):
is forfeited by some critical criminal conduct, or given up
by personal consent or contract. Commonwealth versus. Jennison effectively ended
slavery in Massachusetts, although there continued to be some people
enslave for some time afterward, particularly under the guise of
indentured servitude that as Belinda's petition. There are a lot
(22:38):
of people and articles that describe Belinda's first petition as
the first petition for for reparations for slavery to exist
in the United States. I think that's a little uh oversimplified,
not two fault anybody in that. A lot of these petitions, UM,
(23:00):
we're really difficult to access until that big Harvard database
that we talked about a little bit earlier was online
and it became a lot easier to search through them. Uh.
It made those documents a lot more accessible to people. Um.
But Belinda's petition definitely is part of a much greater
legal effort that was ongoing in Massachusetts for years, um
(23:22):
to try to, at least on an individual basis, compensate some,
uh some previously enslaved people for basically the damage that
was done to them by having them be part of
building their owner's wealth while forbidden to to you know,
accumulate any wealth or possessions of their own. How's the
(23:45):
listener mail looking this time around. I've got some listener mail.
This is from Christina and it adds a little bit
of information to our recent podcast on the Dakota War
and the white Stone Hill Massacre. And she said, as
I started listening to your podcast this summer, and I
adore them. I was excited to listen to your recent
(24:05):
podcast on the Dakota War of eighteen sixty two as
I finished writing a novel on that last year. As
I'm sure you know from your research, the topic is
both interesting and emotionally difficult to study. The brutalities on
both sides were hard to stomach. Twenty three counties in
Minnesota were virtually depopulated. Up to three hundred Dakota died
(24:27):
at Fort Snelling that winter, and six thousand were removed
from Minnesota permanently. Some estimates as to the death toll
of the war range as high as eight hundred civilians.
The most civilians killed on American soil as the result
of hostile action only exceeded by nine eleven. I was
also able to visit southern Minnesota this year, including New
(24:48):
Olm and the ruins of Fort Ridgeley. There's a monument
there to the fort civilian defenders, including several women who
ran into the thick of battle to collect spent bullets
to melt down and make more The fact the hundreds
of civilians and soldiers survived almost two weeks in a
fort that originally did not even have a wall surrounding
the buildings is incredible. My book focused on the stories
(25:09):
of heroism from both settlers and the Dakota. Many of
the Peace Party were Christian and lived quote in civilization
before the war, meaning that they lived like the white settlers.
They were scornfully referred to as quote cut hairs by
other tribe members and were forced to join the uprising
under threat of death. These peaceful Dakota sheltered captives, led
(25:33):
other captives to freedom, and fought with the White soldiers
against the War Party. If you want more information from
the Dakota side of things, I highly recommend through Dakota
Eyes Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of eighteen
sixty two, edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan Are Woolworth.
And So I appreciate your dedication to sharing your love
(25:54):
and knowledge of history to all your listeners. My goal
in writing is to put the story back into history,
and you ladies display that perfectly in your podcasts, and
then she sends a couple of podcast ideas. Thank you
so much, Christina. I will see if I can find
a link to where folks can find that book, and
I will put a link to it in our show notes.
If you would like to write to us about this
(26:16):
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(26:38):
And you can come to our website, which is missed
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(26:59):
History dot com. M mmm for more on this, and
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com
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This October, Holly,
you and I had a pretty exciting time on the
podcast because you came to visit me. I did. I
(00:24):
brought camera and sound people, you did. I mean it
sound like this was like just the trip for funzies,
but no, it was a trip to basically go on
a video recording extravaganza field trip with two of our
How Stuff Works video crew, Casey and Paul, and the
four of us spent a lot of time over three
days interviewing people and recording videos and seeing amazing historical sites. Uh.
(00:49):
It was both fun and exhausting. Super exhausting, but super
uper fun. Yeah. I think even more exhausting for Casey
and Paul. They did so much of the heavy lifting
by nature of being the video and sound people, as
both literally and figuratively, they did a lot of heavy lifting. Yes, yes,
you and I helped carry whenever we could, but you know,
(01:11):
we can't be in front of the camera and also
holding it. That doesn't really work with our setup. So
the first stop that we made was at the Royal
House and slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts, and the Royal
House was home to Isaac Royal and his family during
the eighteenth century, and the Royals were the largest slave
ownly slave owning family in Massachusetts, and they had an
(01:33):
enslaved workforce both at their Medford home and on sugar
plantations in Antiguo, which is a big part of how
the Royals made all that money. There is already a
video on our website that tells more of the story
of the Royals and their enslaved worked workforce and how
those lives intertwined together on the property, and we're going
(01:53):
to put a link to it in the show notes
and on our social media and all of that kind
of stuff when this episode comes out. There are also
of more videos already out and coming soon from that trip,
which we are really excited about and will also be
sharing on our website and social media um as those
are ready. Today's episode of the podcast is also inspired
(02:15):
by our trip to the Royal House Museum. There's a
lot that we don't know about the people who were
enslaved when it was still a home, and there's documentation
for about sixty enslaved people over two generations of royal
ownership there on the Massachusetts property, but the actual number
was probably quite a lot higher. One enslaved woman in
(02:36):
particular stands out, Belinda Sutton, who successfully petitioned for compensation
for her years of enslaved labor on the royal property.
And by the time Belinda petition for compensation, the Royal
family was already incredibly wealthy. And just for clarity, I
feel like we should point out that when we say
(02:57):
the Royals again, it's our O Y A L L.
It's a proper name. Even though you mentioned that his
name was Isaac Royal. We just want to make entirely
clear they were not actual royalty. Uh. And this family
was by this point incredibly wealthy, but they did not
start out incredibly wealthy. Isaac Royal Senior born sixteen seventy
(03:18):
two came from a New England family of relatively modest means,
but that changed after he purchased a sugar plantation in Antigua.
This was during the era of the Triangle trade, that
interconnected trading system that relied on enslaved Africans crops like
sugar and cotton, and products made from those crops like
(03:40):
rum and cloth. By trading mainly in rum, sugar, and
enslaved Africans, Isaac Royal Senior became very wealthy. It's a
common misperception that in North America only the southern economy
relied on slavery, but in reality, a lot of the
wealth in New England and other the other orderly areas
(04:01):
was connected directly to the slave trade and on industries
that relied on slave labor. For a time, the royal
family actually lived in Antigua, but in seventeen thirty seven,
Isaac Sr. Decided to relocate back to New England, and
his reasons for doing so were not specifically recorded, but
we do know that the year before, a series of
(04:21):
gruesome executions had been carried out on Antigua in response
to the threat of a slave revolt. Whether this revolt
really was in the works continues to be the subject
of some historical debate, and it certainly would not have
been the first occurrence of a slave resistance effort on
the island. If it was. An enslaved man known as
(04:42):
Prince Class confessed to having planned a massive uprising that
would not only have overthrown the island's planters, but also
would have massacred its white population. However, there isn't much
physical evidence to support the idea that such a vast
uprising was really imminent, so while some historians are completely
(05:03):
convinced that it was, others suspect that the white slave
owners and the court, who were vastly outnumbered by the
island's enslaved population, exaggerated what was actually a much smaller threat,
possibly as a product of their own fear. The executions, however,
were definitely real, with five people being broken on a wheel,
(05:24):
six gibbeted, and seventy seven burned at the stake. One
of the royals enslaved overseers was among those burned at
the stake, and another was reprieved at the stake in
exchange for information he had so it. While it's not
written down anywhere exactly what prompted them to go back
(05:46):
to New England, it's pretty reasonable to suspect that the
Royals went back because they feared for their safety. To
prepare for the family's arrival back in Massachusetts, Isaac Royal
Senior bought a piece of property Medford just called ten
Hills Farm, and this was a five hundred acre property
that housed a colonial farmhouse, which was expanded into a
(06:09):
three story Georgian mansion. Along with barnes and other outbuildings.
There was also a slave quarters, which still stands today
and is the only freestanding slave housing still left in
the North. The structure that became the slave quarters started
out as an out kitchen or a separate kitchen that
would allow people to cook in hot weather without heating
(06:29):
up the house, and that was standing before the rest
of the quarters were added onto it. The museum on
the property to today includes both the mansion and the
slave quarters, and when the royals took up residence there
at ten Hills Farm, they had at least twenty seven
enslaved Africans with them. Isaac Sr. Died in seventeen thirty nine,
(06:50):
and Isaac Jr. One of his two surviving children, inherited
most of the estate. At this point, the Royals were
one of the wealthiest families in Massachusetts, and Isaac Junior
and his wife Elizabeth were very prominent in society, living
a life of absolute luxury and holding lavish parties, and
for Isaac's part, also holding public office. With the approach
(07:11):
of the Revolutionary War, Isaac Junior fled Massachusetts, leaving his mansion,
most of his physical property, and more than twenty enslaved
people behind. Apparently he had some sympathies with the cause
for independence, but he also had a lot of financial
reasons to stay loyal to the Crown. He tried to
get passage back to Antigua, but he couldn't, and instead
(07:34):
he went to Nova Scotia just before the Battle of
Lexington in seventeen seventy five. A year later, he joined
his daughter's families in England, and he died there of
smallpox in seventeen eighty one. In his will, Isaac Junior
left money to Harvard, which was used to endow the
university's first law professorship. The Shield of Harvard Law School
(07:56):
was for this reason originally modeled after the Royal Family
Code of Arms. The Royal Professorship still exists, but the
Law school agreed to retire the shield and replace it
with a new one in March, and as part of
the same protests that led to this decision, students actually
also occupied a lounge on campus and renamed it Belinda
(08:16):
Hall after Belinda's sutton Who will we will be talking
more about in a moment. Basically, now is the moment
that we will be talking more about her. The moment
has arrived. Uh. Belinda was mentioned in Isaac Jr's will
as well, saying quote, I do also give unto my
said daughter, my negro woman, Belinda, in case she does
(08:36):
not choose her freedom. If she does choose her freedom,
to have it, provided that she gets security that she
shall not be a charge to the town of Medford.
And he also instructed his executor to pay Belinda thirty
pounds for three years. However, by the time of his death,
Isaac Junior actually no longer had a lot of his
(08:56):
property in Massachusetts. A lot of it had been confiscated
during the war, and some of the people who had
been slave there had been enslaved there had been freed,
and others had been sold elsewhere. And later documents, Belinda,
who was referenced in his will, is called Belinda Sutton
a widow, but we don't actually know who her husband
was or when she married him. Some of the earliest
(09:19):
documents that referenced her present her last name is Royal.
But it was common for enslaved people to be given
their owners surnames. Belinda had at least two children, a
son named Joseph and a daughter. We're guessing on the
pronunciation of whether it's prime or prime E, but it's
p R I n E, who were baptized in Medford
(09:39):
in seventeen sixty eight, and it appears that her son
was sold away from her, possibly at the same time
that she was freed. Although the Commonwealth did manument Belinda
along with at least some of the other people who
were confiscated from the royal estate, and they didn't really
make provisions for her her survival afterward, and we will
talk about that led to her petition after a quick
(10:02):
word from a sponsor. When Belinda was freed, she and
her daughter made their way to Boston to try to
start a new life among the free black people living there.
But by this point Belinda was elderly and her daughter
was also not well. Because she had spent most of
(10:23):
her life working for no pay, Belinda had essentially nothing
to live on and no way to support herself and
her daughter. On February fourteen eighty three, Belinda presented a
petition to the Massachusetts General Court. It began quote Commonwealth
of Massachusetts to the Honorable the Senate and House of
(10:45):
Representatives in General Court assembled the petition of Belinda and
African humbly shows that seventy years have rolled away since
she on the banks of the Rio de Volta received
her existence. The mountain covered with spicy forests, the valleys
loaded with the richest fruits spontaneously produced. Joined to that
(11:07):
happy temperature of air to exclude excess, would have yielded
her the most complete felicity, had not her mind received
early impressions of the cruelty of men whose faces were
like the moon, and whose bows and arrows were like
the thunder and the lightning of the clouds. The Rio
de Volta is what's called the Volta River today and
(11:28):
what was at that point known as the Gold Coasts,
and it's now Ghana. That was where Belinda had lived
until about the age of twelve, where as she described
in the petition, she was in a sacred grove with
her parents, paying devotions to Arica and quote an armed
band of white men, driving many of her countrymen in chains,
(11:48):
ran into the hallowed shade. Referring to herself in the
third person, she goes on quote, she was ravished from
the bosom of her country from the arms of her friends,
while the advanced age of her parents, rendering them unfit
for servitude, cruelly separated her from them forever. After she
describes her passage across the Atlantic and her arrival on
(12:11):
a new continent, she states that she worked for fifty
years for Isaac Royal until after the war, before concluding quote,
the face of your petitioner is now marked with the
furrows of time, and her frame feebly bending under the
oppression of years, while she, by laws of the land,
is denied the enjoyment of one morsel of that immense wealth,
(12:33):
a part whereof has been accumulated by her own industry,
and the whole augmented by her servitude. Wherefore, casting herself
at the feet of your honors as to a body
of men formed for the extirpation of vassalage, for the
reward of virtue and the just return of honest industry.
(12:53):
She plus she praised that such allowance maybe made her
out of the estate of Colonel Royal as well prevent
her and her more infirmed daughter from misery and the
greatest extreme and scatter comfort over the short and downward
path of their lives, and she will ever pray so.
In five paragraphs, Belinda describes her childhood and Ghana, her capture,
(13:18):
the middle Passage, her arrival, and the fact that she
spent most of her life helping to build the wealth
of the royal family, when she herself was not allowed
any portion of that wealth or even to own any property.
And she ends by asking for reparations, a payment of
damages for having been wronged, specifically to be taken out
(13:38):
of the estate of the man she worked for without
being compensated for all that time. Some of the petitions
passages aren't necessarily meant to be read completely literally. For example,
the word oricha is yuriba, and it's a word that
means deity, But Yoruba was spoken a little farther west
(13:59):
than the Old Coast, where Belinda would have been from,
so it's not entirely clear where Belinda or perhaps the
person who helped her write this petition might have learned
it or how they might have used it. The description
of Belinda's capture also specifies that her captors were white. However,
it's far more likely that she was initially captured by
(14:19):
other Africans. Further, Inland before being taken to the coast
and sold to white slave traders. You can learn more
about this aspect of the slave trade in our past
podcasts on Dahomey and the Royal Palaces of a Beaumi.
Describing her abductors as white may have been an intentional
effort to appeal to the moral sensibilities of the white judges,
(14:41):
or to resist attempts to shift the blame for slavery
onto Africans who captured the slaves rather than on the
Europeans who created the demand for them. You will still
see people trying to make this argument on the Internet today.
Most likely Belinda herself was illiterate. Her signature on this
and their petitions as an x and her most likely
(15:02):
assistant in creating this petition was a man named Prince Hall.
He had been enslaved from birth around seventeen thirty five,
and then he had been freed in seventeen seventy. After
becoming freed, he became an activist and an abolitionist in Boston,
where he was also the founder of an African Masonic lodge.
He helped author at least two petitions for a general
(15:24):
manumission in Massachusetts, and we will talk a little bit
more about these other petitions that were also presented during
Belinda's life and around the same time a little bit
later in the show. Belinda's petition also quickly became part
of a growing body of anti slavery literature. Quaker abolitionists
distributed copies, and the New Jersey Gazette reprinted it in
(15:46):
its entirety on June eighteenth of seventeen eighty three. Soon
this petition was being reprinted in other newspapers and anti
slavery journals on both sides of the Atlantic. In at
least one British case, there were quite a number of
creative liberties, basically rewriting this legal petition into a slave
narrative in the first person. In terms of the ruling,
(16:10):
Belinda's petition was successful. In seventeen eighty three. The court
awarded her and her daughter an annual pension of fifteen
pounds twelve shillings, to be paid out of the profits
of the royal estate. However, the estate only paid this
pension for a year and then ignored Belinda's repeated requests
for it. In seventeen eighty seven, Belinda went back to
(16:32):
court to try to force the Royal estate to pay
the pension as ordered, and the court once again found
in her favor. The estate did make its payments for
three years before stopping again, leading Belinda back to court
in seventeen ninety and after payments stopped once again, she
had to submit yet another petition in seventeen ninety three,
(16:52):
and once again the ruling was in her favor. From there,
there's really no record of her until Willis Hall, who
had been the executor of Isaac Royal Junior's estate, requested
that he be granted the rest of the money in
the state treasury, saying, quote to family servants who were
left behind end quote, had then died. Presumably one of
(17:13):
the people he is talking about was Belinda, and that
was in Belinda's petition was by far not the first
nor the only petition connected to slavery to be presented
in Massachusetts courts. As we mentioned just a moment ago,
and we're going to talk more about this topic after
we first paused for a word from one of our
fantastic sponsors. Belinda's petition was part of ongoing legal efforts
(17:43):
of enslaved and formally enslaved people to advocate for themselves
through Massachusetts courts. A lot of these were petitions for freedom.
There were enough of those that there are definitely sources
that mr report Belinda's petition as being one for her freedom,
which it was not. The anti slavery petitions Massachusetts Data
Verse at Harvard has a huge collection of anti slavery
(18:07):
and anti segregation documents, including Belinda's petitions online. As early
as seventeen seventy individual enslaved people in Massachusetts were suing
their owners in court for their own freedom, or for
compensation for their labor, or for both, and some of
these suits were in fact successful. Petitions for general freedom
(18:28):
for all people enslaved in Massachusetts started before the Revolutionary
War as well. Enslaved people submitted six different petitions for
general emancipation between seventeen seventy three and seventeen seventy seven alone.
Prince Hall, who probably helped Belinda craft her petition, had
submitted two of these in the late seventeen seventies, asking
for a general emancipation, protection against being kidnapped back into slavery,
(18:53):
financial help for former slaves who wanted to settle in Africa,
and public education access for blacks students. Many of these
early petitions were connected directly to the language the Patriot
Cause was using to frame the Revolutionary War and the
wish for the colonies to be freed from British rule.
They called on the course to recognize that the inalienable
(19:14):
right to freedom was not limited only to white people.
These seventeen seventies petitions prompted one bill to abolish slavery
in Massachusetts, although it was ultimately unsuccessful. Some of the
petitions also drew from the Bible, citing Old Testament passages
requiring the freedom of the freeing of slaves every seven years,
with those freed slaves being compensated. In one case, petitioners
(19:38):
submitted a pamphlet by James Swann, who was a member
of the Sons of Liberty and a participant in the
Boston Tea Party, which attacked slavery from numerous angles, including
the biblical one. It's possible that Belinda's petition was patterned
after or inspired by the petition of Anthony Vassal of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He had submitted a petition in sevent in eighty one
(20:00):
requesting the title to land owned by his former owner,
John Bassel as compensation for his years of unpaid labor
before being enslaved under John Bassell. Anthony and his wife
had lived in Medford, where they had been owned by
Isaac Royal Jr's sister, Penelope Vassel. John Bassel was a
loyalist who had been exiled and whose estate had been confiscated,
(20:23):
and Anthony successfully argued that he was owed reparations for
having worked on that land where his wife and their
children had also been enslaved. Although he wasn't awarded the
title to the land that he asked for, he was
granted an annual pension of twelve pounds out of the
proceeds of the estate. It was in fact court rulings
that would eventually end slavery in Massachusetts. In seventeen eighty one,
(20:46):
Elizabeth Freeman, then known as Mom Bett, successfully sued her
owner for freedom under the grounds that the newly adopted
Massachusetts Constitution forbade it in article one quote, all men
are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential,
and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right
of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, that of acquiring, possessing,
(21:10):
and protecting property in fine that of seeking and obtaining
their safety and happiness. That same year, an enslaved man
known as Walker escaped from Nathaniel Jennison, and when Jennison
found Walker, he beat him, leading Walker to sue him
for assault and battery. This led to a series of countersuits,
(21:30):
ending with Commonwealth versus Jennison in seventeen eighty three. During
the instructions to the jury, Chief Justice Cushing stated, quote,
and upon this ground, our constitution of government, by which
the people of the of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves,
sets out with declaring that all men are born free
and equal, and that every subject is entitled to liberty
(21:53):
and to have it guarded by the laws, as well
as life and property. And in short, is totally repugnant
to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case,
I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our
own conduct and constitution. There can be no such thing
as perpetual servitude of a rational creature unless his liberty
(22:16):
is forfeited by some critical criminal conduct, or given up
by personal consent or contract. Commonwealth versus. Jennison effectively ended
slavery in Massachusetts, although there continued to be some people
enslave for some time afterward, particularly under the guise of
indentured servitude that as Belinda's petition. There are a lot
(22:38):
of people and articles that describe Belinda's first petition as
the first petition for for reparations for slavery to exist
in the United States. I think that's a little uh oversimplified,
not two fault anybody in that. A lot of these petitions, UM,
(23:00):
we're really difficult to access until that big Harvard database
that we talked about a little bit earlier was online
and it became a lot easier to search through them. Uh.
It made those documents a lot more accessible to people. Um.
But Belinda's petition definitely is part of a much greater
legal effort that was ongoing in Massachusetts for years, um
(23:22):
to try to, at least on an individual basis, compensate some,
uh some previously enslaved people for basically the damage that
was done to them by having them be part of
building their owner's wealth while forbidden to to you know,
accumulate any wealth or possessions of their own. How's the
(23:45):
listener mail looking this time around. I've got some listener mail.
This is from Christina and it adds a little bit
of information to our recent podcast on the Dakota War
and the white Stone Hill Massacre. And she said, as
I started listening to your podcast this summer, and I
adore them. I was excited to listen to your recent
(24:05):
podcast on the Dakota War of eighteen sixty two as
I finished writing a novel on that last year. As
I'm sure you know from your research, the topic is
both interesting and emotionally difficult to study. The brutalities on
both sides were hard to stomach. Twenty three counties in
Minnesota were virtually depopulated. Up to three hundred Dakota died
(24:27):
at Fort Snelling that winter, and six thousand were removed
from Minnesota permanently. Some estimates as to the death toll
of the war range as high as eight hundred civilians.
The most civilians killed on American soil as the result
of hostile action only exceeded by nine eleven. I was
also able to visit southern Minnesota this year, including New
(24:48):
Olm and the ruins of Fort Ridgeley. There's a monument
there to the fort civilian defenders, including several women who
ran into the thick of battle to collect spent bullets
to melt down and make more The fact the hundreds
of civilians and soldiers survived almost two weeks in a
fort that originally did not even have a wall surrounding
the buildings is incredible. My book focused on the stories
(25:09):
of heroism from both settlers and the Dakota. Many of
the Peace Party were Christian and lived quote in civilization
before the war, meaning that they lived like the white settlers.
They were scornfully referred to as quote cut hairs by
other tribe members and were forced to join the uprising
under threat of death. These peaceful Dakota sheltered captives, led
(25:33):
other captives to freedom, and fought with the White soldiers
against the War Party. If you want more information from
the Dakota side of things, I highly recommend through Dakota
Eyes Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of eighteen
sixty two, edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan Are Woolworth.
And So I appreciate your dedication to sharing your love
(25:54):
and knowledge of history to all your listeners. My goal
in writing is to put the story back into history,
and you ladies display that perfectly in your podcasts, and
then she sends a couple of podcast ideas. Thank you
so much, Christina. I will see if I can find
a link to where folks can find that book, and
I will put a link to it in our show notes.
If you would like to write to us about this
(26:16):
or any other podcast, we are at history podcast at
how stuff works dot com. We're also on Facebook at
Facebook dot com slash miss in history and on Twitter
at miss in History. Are tumbler is missed in History
dot tumbler dot com, and we are also on Pinterest
and Instagram at missed in History. You can come to
our parent company's website, which is how stuff works dot
com and learn a whole lot about anything your heart desires.
(26:38):
And you can come to our website, which is missed
in History dot com, where you will find show notes
to all of our episodes. You will find the video
we talked about at the top of the show, and
more videos that we are working on now. Uh. You
can find archive also of every podcast we have ever done,
so you can do all that and a whole lot
more at how stuff works dot com or missed in
(26:59):
History dot com. M mmm for more on this, and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works? Dot
com
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