He Takes Faces at the Lowest Rates (episode 229)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to hub history, where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 229, He takes faces at the lowest rates.
Hi, I’m jake! This week. I’m talking about an ad that appeared in the Boston Gazette in 1773.
For a black artist who has described as possessing an extraordinary genius for painting portraits.
From this brief mention, we’ll explore the life of a gifted visual artist who was enslaved in boston.
His friendship with Phillis Wheatley the enslaved poet and the mental gymnastics that were required on the part of white enslavers to justify owning people like property.
Through the life of a second gifted painter will find out how the coming of the American revolution changed life for some enslaved african americans in boston,
and through the unanswered questions about the lives of both, these men will examine the limits of what historical sources can tell us about any given enslaved individual.

[1:06] But before we talk about the enslaved painter who took faces at the lowest rates, I just want to pause and thank our Patreon sponsors.
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Now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[2:17] A classified ad ran in the Boston Gazette starting in January 1773 man, several more times that year at Mr McLain’s.
The watchmaker near the town house is a Negro man whose extraordinary genius has been assisted by one of the best masters in London.
He takes faces at the lowest rates, specimens of his performance may be seen at said place.

[2:43] Now. Well, there were free black people in Massachusetts in the 1770s. That was the exception rather than the rule.
In almost every case, when you encounter the word Negro and print in that era, it’s referring to someone who was enslaved.
So this advertisement was for an enslaved black man and taking faces meant that he could paint or draw portraits.
He was displaying samples of his work at a watchmakers shop near the building we know as the old State House, probably on today’s State Street.
The February 4, 1773 edition of the Gazette, was the first one I could find online that carried this advertisement for the services of an enslaved portraitist.
And it also carried ads for enslaved humans themselves, like this man who was advertised as part of an estate sale.

[3:33] To be sold by said executor. An extraordinary good Negro fellow, about 21 years of age, also four pair of bed screws, one pair of hand screws, horse and chaise horse cart,
About 12,000 of good dry boards, a large scale beam that will weigh a ton and end and about 100 of weights.

[3:55] In the same edition of the paper, there were two ads listing young black girls to be given away for free to new enslave Urz ones listed as being two months old and no age is given for the other who’s just described as,
a very likely hardy female Negro child of as fine a breed as any in America.

[4:18] So in one breath, we see an enslaved painter who is described as possessing extraordinary genius, another enslaved man who’s treated his household furniture and to enslave Children who are deemed literally worthless.

[4:34] From a primary source like this. It’s a lot easier to draw general conclusions about the practice of slavery in Boston in 1773 than it is to gain specific knowledge about the life of any enslaved individual like our painter.

[4:49] Luckily we have another strong clue to the identity of the enslaved painter.

[4:55] Thanks to Phillis Wheatley we know that there was an african american portrait painter who was working in boston at around this time.
Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped from West Africa when she was about seven years old, brought to boston and enslaved by the Wheatley family.
Unlike many in slavers in boston, Susanna, Wheatley encouraged Phillis natural creativity in natural language.
Soon she was reading not only english but also latin and greek and she began composing poetry as a teenager.

[5:27] Now, about 20 years old, she was considered a highly skilled poet.
She just returned from a trip to Britain with her enslaved his son, looking for a publisher for a book of poetry and later that year she’d be Manya minted or released from slavery,
In her now famous 1773 book, poems on various subjects, religious and moral.
She included a poem titled to S. M.
A young African painter on seeing his works in the florid style that was so popular among poetry lovers at the time. It includes the lines still wondrous youth.
Each noble path pursue on deathless glories fixed in ardent view, still may the painters and the poet spire to aid the pencil and diverse conspire.

[6:18] Though, Phillis Wheatley doesn’t identify the wondrous youth beyond the initials.
Sm There are additional clues that let us name the painter as Scipio Morehead, in an essay about searching for the details of Scipio is life in the historic record historian eric slaughter wrote.
It is in fact only from Phillis Wheatley poem that we have any knowledge that Scipio Morehead was a painter,
a manuscript note left and pencil by Daniel O’Connor, a white reader, and his copy of Wheatley poems on various subjects indicates that Wheatley’s poem to S. M.
A. Young African painter on seeing his works was addressed to Scipio Morehead, a black quote servant whose genius inclined him that way, unquote the materials for narrating warheads. Life are few.
The fact that someone wrote a poem to him is the only thing that truly distinguishes the archival traces left by or around this particular person from the traces of many other enslaved persons whose lives remain largely invisible to us.

[7:23] The Wheatley is and the more heads were neighbors and friends. And there’s been speculation that both the enslaved painter Scipio and the enslaved poet Phillis found mentorship in the household of reverend john Morehead and his wife, Sarah Parsons.
Moorhead Phillis Wheatley became famous in both the colonies and England after writing an elegiac poem after the death of reverend George Whitfield.

[7:46] Whitfield was one of the first itinerant ministers, one of the founders of the Methodist church and one of the founders of the evangelical movement.
His ministry inspired the great awakening that helps explain why the United States remains such a heavily religious nation. Even today, though johnny Morehead was a prominent Scots, irish presbyterian.
Both the Wheatley is, and the more heads were influenced by Whitfield’s teaching and Sarah Moorhead had composed poems about the minister in the past,
Professor Wendy, Rafael roberts, who’s made a career of studying Phillis Wheatley compares the language Wheatley used in her Elegy for reverend Whitfield to the language Sarah more headed earlier used,
and she concludes that Sarah Morehead helped to nurture the creative impulses in both young artists.

[8:34] Claims have been made for the reverend Mather Byles as a poetic mentor for Wheatley an idea that’s now commonplace.
My comparison of what field Ian poems suggest that Wheatley found another poetic mentor and the revival supporter, Sarah Moorhead given the friendship between the Morehead and Wheatley families and more heads mentorship of her own slave.
Scipio Moorhead and his artistic pursuits. An active mentor ship rather than only poetic emulation was quite possible.
The more head household cultivated art and poetry as part of its religious experience and understood them to be tools for steering the winds of revival.
It would have been a natural extension of Sarah more heads religious and artistic vision to take the young Wheatley under her wing as well as she was significantly older than the painter.
Phillis Wheatley probably had a hand in Scipio artistic education herself and slaughter speculates about another potential source.

[9:34] In the 1760s, Scipio might have found a mentor of sorts and pompeii, fleet, a slave in the household of the boston publisher, thomas Fleet,
Pompeii fleets, woodcuts for the prodigal daughter made around 1750 may have been copied from a lost English source.
They were subsequently re copied by other engravers, including a young Isaiah thomas who later wrote about pompeii and his history of printing in America.

[10:03] Much as it might seem strange to advertise the extraordinary genius of an enslaved painter alongside enslaved Children who were seen as literally worthless.
It also seems strange to both tutor these young people in the arts, recognize and encourage their incredible skill and creativity and yet enslaved them.

[10:23] In his book, the City state of boston past podcast guest Mark Petersen explains the mental gymnastics that families like the more heads and the Wheatley is performed to justify enslaving people who they clearly recognized as having inherent value in humanity.

[10:39] They were all believers in liberty, but their definition of the term a protestant, christian liberty was complex.
This liberty was not licensed to do what one lists, but freedom to know what is right and to do good.
This was a freedom rooted in submission to an omnipotent gods, authority and acceptance of christ’s love,
demonstrated in his substitution eri atonement for humankind sins, which transformed believers from slaves of sin into free and active servants of God’s divine purpose.

[11:11] As chief beneficiaries of the commercial prosperity that Bostonians wrung from the atlantic trade.
The members of this circle shared the luxury to treat people they claim to possess as privileged servants like Phillis or Scipio rather than his field hands.
In these circles, the practice of african chattel slavery was a serious but murky problem.
As we’ve seen as early as 1700, Samuel Sewall argued that the slave trade was inherently wrong.
Legalized man stealing and no more justified than the selling of joseph by his brothers.
Other 18th century Bostonians justified slavery on the grounds that it was wrong to leave a continent and darkness untouched by Christianity and neglect. The souls of those unfortunates already captured into slavery and deposited on American shores.
Some like Harrison Gray, joseph Sewell and Andrew Elliot, Minister of the New North Church were actively opposed to slavery, refused to own slaves themselves and spoke out against the institution.
Others john Wheatley and john moore had among them saw no contradiction between owning slaves and treating them humanely as christians, just as they would servants in less permanent forms of bondage.

[12:29] So perhaps Sarah Moorhead believes she was doing the humane thing when she enslaved a young African boy in 1760 and gave him the name Scipio,
in his essay eric slaughter explored the slim details of Scipio early life that could be gleaned from historic sources.
Writing On June 11, 1760, a group of White Bostonians presented a black child, they called Scipio Sarasin to an Anglican Minister for Baptism.
While it’s possible to reconstruct fundamental facts about the white players in this ceremony and even about the setting in which it took place, the child at its center remains largely invisible.
King’s Chapel, a stone building sometimes called the masterpiece of the first architect of british America may itself have been partially constructed by unfree black laborers.
Once inside the building social conventions segregated black and white parishioners.
In the recent past, numerous whites had brought Children of african descent to reverend Henry Kane er for baptism Thomas Hayes, one of Scipio sponsors was a cord winner, a shoemaker.
He held the title to a pew in King’s Chapel and it served as a witness in the infant baptisms of at least two other slaves Before Scipio Sarasin including reverend Connors own slave pompeii.
Six years later caner would baptize Hayes’s slave crispin.

[13:56] Scipio Other sponsor was Sarah Parsons Morehead, a published poet who had occasionally taught Children how to draw paint and embroider,
Sarah Morehead was married to the pastor of the presbyterian church, reverend john Moorhead,
the surviving baptismal record describes Scipio Sarasin as a Negro servant to reverend john Moorhead,
but in late colonial new England, a Negro servant was synonymous with a slave sarah and john owned Scipio,
His origin is as unclear as his age.
Scipio is one of the names most frequently given a newly imported blackmail slaves by White Masters in New England in the middle of the 18th century.
The names of classical Worthy’s in God’s that white masters gave two black men in the 18th century british America,
Scipio kato caesar, bacchus, pompeii Neptune Nero and jupiter were the most common such names in boston,
marked even baptized slaves as pagan or pre christian, and served to iron eyes the power dynamic between slaveholders and slaves.

[15:05] Slaughter, points out that one of the details that cannot be gleaned from historic sources is Scipio as age.
When Phillis wrote about him in 1773. She was about 20 years old, and her references to him as a youth indicate that she was at least a little bit older than him.
If he was an infant, when he was baptized in 1760, he might have been as young as 13 years old.
If so, His skill as a portraitist is even more impressive, because many people believe that he created the portrait of Phillis Wheatley That ended up being transposed to an engraving and used as the frontispiece for a book of poetry.
When her enslave er Susanna, Wheatley fell ill. Phillis had to cut her 1773 trip to England shore, returning to Boston before she could secure a publisher for a book of poems.
In her absence, Captain robert, calif, acting as the weeklies agent, continued to search for a sponsor.
In a letter to the family reported that Selina Hastings the Countess Huntington was interested in financing the publication, but she had a couple of requests.

[16:14] I’d like to forget to mention to you. She’s fond of having the book dedicated to her.
But one thing she desired, which she said, she hardly thought would be denied her.
That was to have Phillis his picture in the frontispiece, so that if you would get it done it can be engraved here.
I do imagine it can be easily done, and think, would contribute greatly to the sale of the book.
I am impatient to hear what the old countess says upon the occasion, and she’ll take the earliest opportunity of waiting upon her when she comes to town.

[16:47] At the countess’s request a portrait was made of Phillis Wheatley Which is usually attributed to the hand of Scipio Moorhead Then that portrait was made into an engraving.

[16:59] Some articles about Scipio Morehead state that he traveled to London to make the plate for the engraving himself, but I couldn’t find any period sources to support that claim.
If he created the likeness of Phillis it’s likely that he sketched or painted her portrait and the original was lost after being sent to London and used to create a plate.
The remaining engraving is considered the first portrait of a woman writer at work. In the Americas 1996 article for the William and Mary Quarterly about 18th century representations of African Americans.
Barbara Eddie Lacy describes the unusual nature of this portrait.

[17:35] The frontispiece portrait and poems on various subjects, religious and moral is believed to be based on the work of black painter Scipio Morehead, a member of the household of the reverend john Moorhead of boston and a friend of Phillis Wheatley,
The frontispiece shows a slim young woman seated in the curve back chair and an oval table with a quill pen, inkwell book and writing paper.
She’s writing but has stopped and lifted her head to compose the next lines.
Her eyes look off but not at the world around her. She is inwardly directed reading her thoughts.
Yet the inscription on the portraits border identifies her as Phillis Wheatley Negro servant to mr john Wheatley of boston.
She’s presented to english readers as a woman of refinement, a poet and a servant, an improbable thought provoking combination of roles.

[18:32] I thought that the marginal note by Daniel O’Connor that eric slaughter told us about might have been the only reference to Scipio by name during his own era, but past podcast guest jail Bell turned up one more in conjunction with john more heads death.
The Reverend passed away in December of 1773. Phillis Wheatley penned a new poem in his memory.
Addressed to mary Moorhead Sarah and john’s daughter.
The Allergy to Miss Mary More Head on the death of her father, the reverend mr john Moorhead focused on the dual loss suffered by the Morehead family and reverend More Heads church,
written in a more simple style than the od Scipio It includes straightforward couplets like vine and the church’s sorrows.
I deplore Moorhead is dead in Friendship is no more.

[19:25] In the weeks after the Minister’s death, a printer named William McAlpine set the poem in type and sold it as a broadsheet in the streets of boston into the void left by more heads passing stepped, reverend. David McClure.
McClure was an itinerant minister, and the early months of 1774, he preached from pulpits in Salem, Newburyport, and at Portsmouth, Exeter in Dover, New Hampshire.
His diary entry for April 28, notes that while in Portsmouth, the received an invitation to supply the pulpit of the late venerable mr Morehead in boston.

[20:03] The next entry in his diary from May four shows just how closely McClure stepped into the late Johnny.
More heads shoes put up at the widow. More Heads found the place convenient for study the family small.
The widow is unhappily deranged.
The distraction is of the melancholy cast silent divers to company or society.
She was once an accomplished wit and beauty tenderly beloved by her husband.
Her distraction was thought to be the effect of an uncommon flow of spirits and lively imagination. Too intensely applied to reading and study.
One son and two daughters survive. The son alexander is now a surgeon in the british Navy in boston harbor.
Her daughter mary takes care of her poor mother. A Negro Young man does the housework.
Scipio is an ingenious and serious african. He possesses a natural genius for painting, and has taken several tolerable likenesses,
and quoting this passage for a 2016 blog post about Scipio jail, Bell notes,
it’s a pity that McClure attributed sarah more heads depression too, too much reading and study, rather than say, the death of her husband less than six months before.

[21:24] That would seem to be the last word on the so called Negro Man of Extraordinary Genius, who was advertised in 1773 as taking faces at the lowest rates in Boston.
Scipio who was enslaved by the Morehead family, was a gifted visual artist who had a friendship with the much more famous Phillis who was enslaved by the Wheatley family and who was also a gifted poet.
Case closed or maybe not In the early 2000s. Another enslaved artist who was active in Boston at the same time began to re emerge from the archives.
One of the founders of the Hingham Historical Society in the early 20th century gave the organization a huge collection of antiques that she had inherited.
Among the collection were portraits of Henry and christian Barnes along with the collected letters of both christian Barnes especially was quite a letter writer writing to her husband when he was away to friends and acquaintances in boston.
After the Barnes family moved from boston to Marlborough and later in life even to one of the three african americans whom the family had enslaved.

[22:36] Henry. Barnes ran a distillery, any manufactured Pearl Ash or potassium carbonate, which was used as 11 or before. The invention of baking powder.
Long time fans will remember that Evan horse furd of Boston first developed baking powder in the 1860s, then used his fortune to promote the crackpot theory that Vikings had originally settled the Charles River Valley.
Learn More about him. An episode 17 Barnes used the profits from his own leavening agent to buy an estate in Marlborough as well as purchasing at least three african americans were enslaved as household servants.
Among them was a woman named Daphney who enters the historical record briefly in May of 1745, when she was baptized at Trinity Church in Boston.
Church records note that she was an adult and that her son Prince was baptized alongside her Prince. We should notice another very common name for enslavement in New England.
And like Scipio it was intended to iron eyes the power dynamic between slaveholders and slaves.

[23:43] While Daphney was taken to Marlborough When the Barnes family moved there, it appears that Prince was not.
He may have been raised in the household of one of Christian Barnes relatives and hang him, but he’s not mentioned in her letters until November 1769.
In a letter on November 20, she wrote Daphney Son Prince is here and I’m sitting to him for my picture.
He has taken a copy of my brother is extremely well and if mine has the least resemblance, I shall have a strong inclination to send it to you purely for the curiosity.
So it’s nothing but a dog free is not proper materials to work with.

[24:21] Apparently she approved of his artistic talents, because three days later, christian noted in the letter that Henry had purchased Prince, saying, I believe he has some design of improving his genius and painting,
and both the understatement of the year and a commentary on the inhumanity of slavery.
She adds, Daphney appears to be much better reconciled to a state of slavery since her son’s arrival upon the whole. I believe there is not a happier set of negroes in any kitchen in the province.

[24:54] Christian Barnes put Prince to work practicing his portraiture at first as a novelty, and within a few months she wrote where I only did a scan on the qualifications of my lindner.
It would be a subject for several sheets.
He is a most surprising instance of the force of natural genius, for without the least instruction or improvement.
He has taken several faces which are thought to be very well done.
He has taken a copy of my picture, which I think has more of my resemblance than Copley’s.
He is now taking his own face, which I will certainly send you as. It must be valued as a curiosity by any friend you shall please to bestow it upon the word lindner in this context, just means a portraitist.

[25:39] Since Barnes already compared his work favorably to John Singleton Copley’s one of the most celebrated portrait artists of the 18th century.
It must have been pretty good.
MS Barnes noted that Prince was working with pastels on blue paper and was desperate to find better materials for him to work with.
She wanted to get them decent paints and some instruction because already in March 1770s she saw Prince’s paintings as a potential money making operation writing.
If you should meet in your travels with anyone who is a proficient in the art, I wish you would make some inquiries into these particulars for people in general.
Think Mr. Copley will not be willing to give them any instruction, and you know there is nobody else in boston that does anything at the business,
and I should likewise be obliged to you if you could employ some friend who is a judge of those things, to purchase a small assortment of crayons with other materials, property, the business that he may be kept employed in this way till he has made some further improvement.
Then I intend to exhibit them to the public, and don’t doubt that he will do honor to the profession.

[26:46] Apparently, her husband Henry had a reputation for get rich quick schemes, because she quickly added, you laugh now, and think that this is one of Barnes schemes, but you’re quite mistaken.
It’s entirely my own.
And as it is the only one I ever engaged in, I shall be greatly disappointed if it doesn’t succeed.

[27:06] Christian Barnes must have found some proper paints and canvas for Prince to practice with, because before long she thought that his skills were coming along well enough for the family to make a significant investment in them.

[27:19] After he had been enslaved in the Barnes household for just over a year, Prince would accompany Henry Barnes on an extended trip to England And February 1771, Henry wrote to a family friend named Elizabeth Murray.
Prince comes on extremely well. He is with a Mr Pine historians believe this was robert Edge Pine who has taken him purely for his genius.
Mrs Right tells me I shall carry him a treasure to America.

[27:50] An article for antiques magazine, co written by Amelia Peck of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Paula bagger of the Hangem Historical Society explains that,
Prince was not in London long, but the trip exposed him to new experiences and attitudes.
Pine was a supporter of english radical politics and the american independence movement.
While the Barnes family was loyalist, the abolition of slavery was an issue of growing importance in England.
The following year in English Court held that slavery was not supported by english common law and a number of free black men were achieving prominence in the arts and letters.
It has been suggested that Pines father, the noted engraver, john Pine was black or of mixed race, and this may have affected Prince’s relationship to his teacher.

[28:40] Certainly the new experiences and attitudes that they encountered in London affected Prince’s relationship with Henry. Barnes Barnes became increasingly paranoid that Prince might try to escape while it was in the less repressive environment of Old England.
In his 1771 letter to Elizabeth Murray, Henry wrote, I have met with so many disappointments in life that the late I have learned not to be too sanguine in my expectations.
Indeed, his life and situation are so precarious. If he should even attempt his freedom, it would give me such a disgust to him. I should not overlook it.
I want you should return with Bill fried. Do not let him converse with any of his own colour here.

[29:24] Henry had become so fixated on the risk of Prince self emancipating if he was able to make contact with his fellow black londoners, he was considering taking on the expense of bringing another enslaved man from home all the way across the atlantic to keep Prince company,
with the probably spurious assumption that a black New Englander would be more docile.
Instead, he ended up taking prints back to massachusetts, which would not become a hotbed of the underground railroad and other abolitionist activities for over a half century.
The article by Peck and bagger describes Prince’s returned to boston In March, 1772, Christian reported that Prince had Taken five pictures from life since his return, three of them as good likenesses as ever.
Mr Copley took, and that she planned a trip to boston to recommend r lindner to the public.

[30:19] In January 1773, the ad began running in the Boston Gazette for the enslaved portraitist who takes faces at the lowest rates that february.
A Scottish textile merchant named William Do Good, sat for Prince and 237 years later, it caught the eye of Amelia Peck, a curator of decorative arts at the Met.
In the article she co authored with Paula bagger, she explains how she first encountered the work of Prince Demah Barnes At first glance, the small oil portrait of a handsome man in a flower dressing gown looked somewhat unprepossessing,
Hanging on the Wall of a Dealer’s Booth at an Antique Show in 2010.
It had a folksy appeal, but wasn’t an obvious candidate for acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
However, as a curator in the midst of developing an exhibition concerning the worldwide textile trade between 1500 and 1800, I was particularly taken with the chance Banyan worn by the sitter, and asked for more information about the picture.

[31:23] The dealer had it on consignment from a person who had purchased it from the family of the subject, William. Do good.
It had traveled down through five generations before being sold in its original frame. The painting was accompanied by a heart shaped brooch, thought to be the one pin to do God’s gown.
The Stretcher, a part of the frame was signed by the thin unknown Prince Demah Barnes and dated 1773.
The whole package proved so appealing that we brought the painting to the museum for examination and further research.
It was certainly a rare example of a vernacular american portrait painted before the Revolutionary War.
Initial research in the basic sources didn’t reveal any mention of an artist named Prince Demah Barnes but after finding evidence that William Do God was a Scottish immigrant textile merchant who advertised as imported goods in the Boston papers.
In the early 1770s, I was convinced that we needed to acquire the painting.
It would be an interesting addition to the American wings collection of 18th century portraits, especially in comparison with contemporary works by Boston artists like John Singleton Copley and would be a terrific addition to my upcoming textile exhibition interwoven globe.

[32:40] Prince. Demah Barnes may have been unknown to peck in the art historians at the Met, but he was well known to Paula bagger and the hang of Historical society.
Since the early 2000’s Bagger, an attorney in the director of the historical society, have been researching Prince’s life through the Barnes family letters and other correspondence in Boston Area Archives.
By this time she knew about his 1745 baptism, his 1769, purchased by the Barnes family and is improving artistic skills through the early 1770s.
From the letters, she was convinced that the portraits of Henry and christian Barnes in the Hingham collection had been painted by Prince, but there was no solid proof in her own article about this project, bagger wrote,
We got in touch with the Metropolitan and we’re able to share what we have learned about Prince The Met invited us to bring our two portraits to its paintings, Conservation department, where they were examined using X radiographs and infrared reflect ah graffiti.
The met concluded that it signed painting by Prince and our two Barnes portraits were all by the same artist.

[33:50] Unfortunately for almost everyone involved, the discovery of Prince’s artistic talent played out against the backdrop of the rush to revolution.
Christian Barnes letter describing Prince’s natural genius and his amazing portrait work, even though he only had blue paper and pastel crayons to work with, was written two weeks after the boston massacre.
The Barnes family were staunch loyalists and tories and they tried to ignore the writing on the wall for as long as possible.
In part, they managed this by having Henry decamped to London for several months with Prince as his refusal to boycott british goods brought more and more scrutiny when they returned Prince painted the portrait of William do God, then Elizabeth smith that summer.
And probably the portrait of the Barnes is around the same time that winter The boston Tea Party took place Before long.
It was time for the Barnes family to leave someone destroyed the family coach, Bernd, Henry, and effigy, and broke all the windows of his manufacturing house.
Some accounts say that the Sons of Liberty tarred and feathered Henry’s horse, and he eventually received a letter threatening far worse treatment.

[35:03] If you only want recompense for the damage you have done the country and importing goods, contrary to the agreement of the body of merchants on this continent’s.
I will recompense, for I am determined to fetch you two terms, even if I do it at the expense of my own soul, or the cost of a sore back, or any other punishment in this world, only for the good of my country. For I style myself a son of liberty.
Therefore, if you will shut up your store and sell nothing out nor important goods, you shall sustain no more damage.
But if not, I will fire your house in store and destroy all your substance you have on the earth, and I will take your body, and I will target, and if nothing else will do but death, you shall have it certainly.

[35:47] The article and antiques magazine describes how the Barnes family finally made their escape.
They left for England in late 1775. Their goods were confiscated and Henry was banished by the Act of the General Court in 1778.
Most of their possessions, including the family portraits and Daphney Prince’s mother were left at their Marlborough estate.
The portraits of Henry and christian both have damage in the area of the painting so their hearts would have been the lore is that they were attacked by the patriots who came to seize the estate.

[36:21] Prince considered himself a free man after the Barnes family fled boston. But whether legal papers to this effect were signed is unknown.
In April 1777, Prince, now just Prince Demah enlisted in Col Thomas Crafts Artillery Regiment of the Massachusetts Militia.
As an editorial aside, Christian, Barnes had been confident back in 1770 that young prince shared the family’s Tory principles.
Writing this surprising genius has every qualification to render him a good servant sober, diligent and faithful.
And I believe, as he was born in our family, that he is of Tory principles, but of that I am not quite so certain as he has not yet declared himself.

[37:05] En slavers could internalize their ritualistic deference that enslaved household servants had to show to their owners to such a degree that the owners never questioned that they’re chattel might disagree on anything of importance.
Yet Prince thomas enlistment is um atrocity or assistant gunner and a patriot artillery regiment shows how far from the truth. Christian Barnes Declaration of his Tory Principles actually was, the article continues.
His name appears in regimental records through early 1778, likely he fell ill.
The regiment’s barracks in boston’s West end were close to the provincial hospital, and smallpox was endemic.

[37:45] And on March 11, he wrote his will as Prince Demah lindner and a free Negro He left all he had to his mother.
Daphney Demah One week later he died.
His burial recorded at trinity church, We may never know which enslaved African American men was actually advertised in.
The Boston Gazette is taking faces at the lowest rates, but both candidates experienced profound changes in their lives in 1775.
The lead up to war in that year also proved to be a turning point. The life of Scipio Moorhead sarah Parsons, Moorhead is believed to have died sometime in late 17 74.
And the boston gazette in Country Journal of january 2nd 17 75 includes this notice To be sold by public auction on Thursday next at 10:00 in the 4:00 PM.
All the house furniture belonging to the estate of the reverend Mr john Moorhead deceased consisting of,
tables, chairs, looking glasses, feather beds, bedsteads and bedding, Pewter, brass, sundry pieces of plate, etcetera, a valuable collection of books, also a likely Negro lad,
the sale to be at the house in all Committees Lane south end, not far from Liberty Tree.

[39:08] In a cruel irony, the advertisement that includes Scipio the likely Negro lad is strikingly similar to an ad that appeared in the same paper two years before,
In the same edition as the ad for the enslaved painter who took faces at the lowest rates and a state auction offered for sale.
A good negro fellow about 21 years of age.
If he had never met Phillis Wheatley Scipio would have likely remained just as anonymous as the 21 year old fellow who was being sold in that 1773 ad.
And after a sail out of the morehead family in 1775, he became that anonymous again.
There’s no more record of the young African painter who wheatley called a wondrous youth after that 1775 sale.

[39:56] To learn more about Scipio Morehead in Prince, Demah check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 229.
I’ll have links to primary sources like scans of the boston gazette containing the advertisement for the enslaved painter and the estate auction where Scipio was sold.
Phillis Wheatley book of poetry, reverend, David McClure’s diary and a 17 74 receipt for a painting signed by Prince Demah and proving that he dropped his enslaved his name like a hot potato.
I’ll include links to the invaluable articles written about Scipio by eric slaughter and about Prince by Paula bagger and Amelia pack, plus the other modern articles I quoted from.

[40:38] I’ll also link to online copies of the three known paintings by Prince. Demah that survive as well as the frontispiece that may have been created by Scipio Moorhead If you’d like to leave us some feedback, you can email us that podcast at hub history dot com.
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