Pamphlets, Statues, and the Selling of Joseph (episode 191)

Intro

Music

Jake:
[0:05] 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 1 91 Pamphlets, Statues and the Selling of Joseph Hi, I’m Jake.
This week I’ll be talking about the selling of Joseph, a very brief pamphlet published in Boston and the Year 1700.
It’s considered the first abolitionist track to be published in what’s now the United States.
Authored by Salem Witch Trial Judge Samuel Sewall, the three page pamphlet uses biblical references.
To argue that enslaving another person could never be considered moral.
It’s considered the first abolitionist track to be published in what’s now the United States.
Authored by Salem Witch Trial Judge Samuel Sewall three page pamphlet uses biblical references to argue that enslaving another person could never be considered moral.
L examine what motivated Sewall to write the tract, how his peers in Boston reacted to it and what its effect was on the wider world Spoiler alert.
Slavery would remain legal in Massachusetts for another 80 years, becoming only more common in the years after Sewall published the selling of Joseph.

[1:23] In Light of recent events will also spend a moment talking about the current debate about statues and their removal.
But before we talk about slavery and monuments, it’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection and our upcoming historical event.

Boston Book Club

[1:39] My pick for the Boston Book Club this week is a documentary called Birth of a Movement.
William and wroteMonroe Trotter has made a few appearances on the podcast, most recently I interviewed Professor KerriGreenidge about her biography of Trotter Black Radical.
Before that, he made an appearance in my interview with Millington Burgers and Lockwood, and his first appearance on the show was as the organizer of Black Boston’s protests against the racist movie Birth of a Nation in 1915.
The Fight against Birth of a Nation is also the topic of Birth of a Movement, which first aired on PBS in 2017 D.
W. Griffith’s movie Birth of a Nation, which was based on an earlier book and play by Thomas Dixon called The Clansman,
was widely praised for innovative new filmmaking techniques like close up shots of an actor’s face and fade outs, where shot slowly dissolved into darkness.
It had a revolutionary score, blending original music compositions with works from the classical canon like Right of the Valkyries and traditional Heartland music.
Like Dixie, it was anchored by thrilling action scenes shot on a never before seen scale with thousands of actors and extras, hundreds of horses and battle field effects like real cannons,
it quickly became the biggest blockbuster the movie business had ever seen, and it was the most popular movie in Boston when it was released here.

[3:02] Birth of a Nation is also basically just a love note to the KKK.
Set in the South during the Civil War and reconstruction. It reenacted battle scenes from the war portrayed the Confederate cause, is morally superior to the union and showed union soldiers indiscriminately burning and destroying civilian property in the South.
In the post war scenes that portrayed newly emancipated African Americans as the embodiment of every stereotype and secret white fear, they are depicted as slothful bent on revenge against their former owners and lust crazed for white women.
Scenes of rape, forced marriage and lynching are portrayed in loving almost pornographic detail.
Against this chaotic background, the Ku Klux Klan is portrayed as the heroic saviors of white Southern womanhood and the uniters of white Americans north and south in shared violence against African Americans.

[4:00] The birth of a movement is a modern response to birth of a nation and an examination of the protest moving and the and an examination of the protest movement against it and an examination of the protest movement against it.
The documentary is narrated by Danny Glover, and the description on the PBS website says Birth of a Movement features interviews with Spike Lee.
Whose NYU student film. The answer was a response to the Griffith film Reginald Hudlin, D.
J. Spooky, Henry Louis Gates Jr and declare,
while exploring how Griffiths film long taught in film classes as an innovative work of genius motivated generations of African American filmmakers and artists as they work to reclaim their history and their on screen image.

[4:49] The good news is the birth of a movement is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
We’ll include a link in this week’s show notes and for the upcoming event this week, I have a program that’s being sponsored by the Brattle Theater, Emerson College and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Upcoming Event(S)

[5:07] Have you ever noticed how many movies set in Boston have a certain feel to them?
I’m happy that filmmakers have fallen in love with this city. But if Boston was an actor or complain about being typecast,
just seeing the skyline Statehouse dome or the Zakim bridge in a movie trailer pretty much guarantees that the reviews air going to include the phrase a grim and gritty drama about without seeing any more.
You can guess that the plots gonna be about cups, mobsters and or working class whites struggling to keep their heads above water.

[5:40] This talk at 5:30 p.m. On July 9th, titled Boston and Film from Eddie Coyle to Manchester by the Sea, we’ll examine some of those tropes and the roots of Boston cinematic stereotyping.
Here’s how the NHS website describes it.
The 1973 film The Friends of Eddie Coyle was not a box office smash, but it became a cult classic and was particularly popular among filmmakers and film critics.
The movie may have been the first to depict Boston as a working class and violent city, but it was certainly not the last.
With Academy Award winning films including The Departed, Mystic River, Good Will Hunting and Manchester by the Sea, one might say there’s a gritty Boston genre.
Our discussion will explore what the’s films say about Boston and what the city represents. Nationally, the event will be a panel discussion headed by Professor Robert Alison of Suffolk University and Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr.
It’s an online event, so be sure to register in advance to get the connection details.
We also have a bonus event this week sent to us by the good folks at the Paul Revere House.
Their executive director and adult program director will be leading a virtual public forum hosted by the Concord Museum this Wednesday, July 1st at 7 p.m.

[7:00] The subject of the talk is separating fact from fiction In this story surrounding Paul Revere and his famous ride, Here’s how the Concord Museum describes it.
Paul Revere, in his midnight ride immortalized as the harbinger of the dramatic escalation of the American colonial rebellion against the British Empire, has been celebrated in tales and songs throughout the centuries.
But what really happened on April 18th 17 75? Experts shed light on the legendary ride and the man behind it, revealing the fascinating life of a fabled national hero who witnessed the birth of a nation editor’s note.
Not that birth of a nation.

[7:42] I know this is short notice, but be sure to reserve your tickets from the conquered museum. The suggested donation is $10.
We’ll have the links you need for both events and this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 191 Before I start the show, I want to pause and say Thank you to our patri on sponsors.
I get a kick out of researching and writing these shows. And now, thanks to the Boston Preservation Alliance, I could even claim that Hub history is an award winning podcast.
The best thing about podcasts is that they’re free to download and enjoy even preservation achievement Award winning podcasts.
Unfortunately, podcasts are not free to produce. Every month we pay for Web hosting and security podcast media hosting transcription and audio processing tools.
Our sponsors make all that possible by signing up to give us $2.5 dollars or even $10 a month.
If you’d like to join them, just goto patri on dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com and click on the Support US link.
Thanks again to everyone who helps us make hub history.

[8:55] Now it’s time for this week’s mean topic. A note on languages. We get started today.

Main Topic: The Selling Of Joseph

[9:01] I replaced the n word, my 17th and 18th century sources with the word slave.
Since none of those sources were referring to free African Americans, I left the rest of the racial language unchanged, including primary sources from Puritan Boston and quotes from articles written in the 20th century,
both of which use terminology that’s considered somewhat offensive today.

[9:24] I’ve been amazed to see Confederate statues across the South. Falling is part of the protest movement sparked by the murder of George Floyd, despite all the backlash against them in recent years.
But I believe that these monuments, the white supremacy, would outlive me.
The sudden rush to take them down is, as always, accompanied by cries that doing so is a racing history.
As the descendant of confederates and slave owners, I can tell you that this is just not the case.
The lost cause narrative that those statues glorify is a perversion of true history.
There’s an accompanying cry that it’s not fair to judge historical figures by today’s standards.
The Confederate generals, like Robert E. Lee, whose statue in Richmond is likely to come down, simply didn’t know any better.
They were products of their times.
Well, they may have been products of their times, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have known better.
Robert E. Lee and Angelina Greinke were born two years apart on slavery, Lee said the blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially and physically.
The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their instruction as a race and I hope will prepare and lead them to better things.

[10:42] Angelina Greinke, responding to arguments like this that slavery benefited the enslaved, said, I appeal to you, my friends, as mothers.
Are you willing to enslave your Children? You start back with horror and indignation at such a question.
But why? If slavery is no wrong to those upon whom it’s imposed, why if, as has often been said, slaves air happier than their masters, free from the cares and perplexities of providing for themselves and their families?
So Angelina Greinke, product of the same times, knew better.
People wonder whether statues of Thomas Jefferson will be the next to fall, and I wonder if maybe they should.
Jefferson was a special kind of hypocrite, a man who could write the beautiful in uplifting words of universal liberty into our national credo.
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.

[11:38] That man also enslaved hundreds of black men, women and Children, and he famously had a sexual relationship with an enslaved woman who had no power to withhold consent.
So he knew better. But he went on enslaving people anyway.
The beautiful plantation. Monticello wasn’t supported by sales of tobacco.
In the 17 95 letter, Jefferson said, A nail ary, which I have established with my own Negro boys, now provides completely for the maintenance of my family as we make from 8 to 10,000 nails a day.
Even that belies the brutal truth behind Thomas Jefferson’s lavish lifestyle.
The profitable product of Monticello wasn’t even nails. There was the black Children who he forced to work in his nail ary and learned the trade of making nails, then sold to other planners who wanted to start their own nail making operations.
Sure, Thomas Jefferson was a product of his times, but so is Abigail Adams.
The two founders were born one year apart, while Thomas was happy to live on the money he made by selling and slave Children Abigail was writing.
I wish most sincerely that there was not a slave in the province.
It always appeared on most iniquitous scheme to me, fight ourselves what we’re daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.

[13:00] Of course, the black people who were kidnapped and enslaved always knew that slavery was wrong.
From the first Africans enslaved in Virginia and 60 19 and in Massachusetts in 16 38 to the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to the last enslaved residents of Galveston, Texas, on June 19th 18 65,
it’s hard to say exactly when white Americans began to recognize the evils of slavery.
Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston may have been one of the first. He was certainly the first to publish his opinion.

[13:33] When I was writing this episode, I almost forgot to introduce Samuel Sewall because he’s become so ubiquitous in past episodes of the podcast.
Whenever I need a primary source about something that happened in Boston in the late 16 hundreds early 17 hundreds, Samuel Stools Diary is the first place I look.
In many ways, I think of him as the last Puritan.
He came to Massachusetts as a child, is part of the original Puritan great Migration, went to Harvard and became a prominent merchant politician in Jurist in Boston.
He lived until 17 30 meaning that long after most of the Bay Colony had moved on from the strictest forms of Calvinism.
Sewall still took great pleasure in reprimanding his fellow Bostonians for celebrating that famously pagan holiday Christmas.
Samuel Sewall may have been forgotten by history, except for one thing.
In 16 92 he served as a member of the court of oyer and term inner that heard the Salem witchcraft trials.
He was the only judge to later apologize for his role in them.

[14:35] We might not have ever learned. Samuel Sewall is beliefs about slavery without a man named John Safian.
Writing in the Journal of Early American Literature in 1994 Albert J. Von Frank said, John Safian has two quite distinct reputations.
Two students of American literature. He’s known as one of the most important minor poets of 17th century Massachusetts and an accomplished writer of allergies.
While the students of the history of American Slavery he’s known as a slave owner in a slave trader who engage Samuel Sewall in a controversy over a particular bond servant named Adam,
Saffan was one of the most wealthy and politically connected men in Massachusetts in the late 17th century, having served as speaker of the Assembly into the 16 29 Charter,
supported the 16 89 revolt against the Andress administration and been appointed as a judge under the new charter of William and Mary.
In 16 93 he leased a farm in what’s now Bristol, Rhode Island, but was then part of Massachusetts to Thomas Sheppard.

[15:38] Along with the farmland in the buildings, Shepard was leasing a black man named Adam,
on Frank Says in the spring of 16 94 Saffan drew up an instrument which Limited has claimed Adam services to a period of seven years,
a period clearly meant to run concurrently with shepherds tendency and identical to the conventional term of indentured servants.
Adam status under this contract was unclear and open to interpretation because although hereditary slavery was common in Massachusetts by 16 93 and had been since 16 38 as we discussed in Episode 74,
there was little underlying legal framework for the institution.

[16:19] When the seven year term expired.
Saffan would claim that Adam had not served a seven years cheerfully enough, which rendered the contract null and void, leaving Adam still enslaved.
When Frank continues what had happened between 16 94 and 1700 to change Stephen’s mind about honoring his contract with Adam,
in 16 96 the monopoly of the Royal African company was finally broken, and the slave trade was open to all comers, with the result that the number of actual slaves bound for life held in Boston and other towns nearby rose suddenly and dramatically.
In other words, while some were concerned about the social implications of an increasing and increasingly restive black underclass.
There was in Boston in 17 01 an active market for outright slaves that simply had not existed in 16 94,
At the very end of the 17th century, old ambiguities in the legal and social status of black servants were being quickly and decisively resolved away from the indenture model towards slavery.
In 1700 petition was circulating in Boston quote for the freeing of a Negro and his wife, who are unjustly held in bondage.

[17:35] This petition brought Adam’s case to the attention of Judge Sewall Adams.
Plate finally pushed Sewall to speak publicly about his anti slavery Believes in 1700 he’d published a three page pamphlet titled The Selling of Joseph in the William and Mary Quarterly.
In 1964 Lawrence W. Towner described how the pamphlet built on Samuel Sewall is private and unsuccessful struggle to come to terms with the morality of slavery.

[18:03] He concludes that there were four events that convinced Judge Sewall to make his private concerns public.
Ah, friend showed him a petition he wished to present it the General Court, about a Negro man and his wife unjustly held in bondage.
At the same time, public agitation began in favor of an imposed on Negroes To discourage the bringing off. Hm.
Sewall also learned that Cotton Mather planned to publish a sheet urging that slaves to be converted to Christianity.
These events were brought into focus when Sewall read Paul Baines is an entire commentary upon the whole epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians,
particularly the section on Masters and Servants, which describes Blackmore’s as perpetually put under the power of the master.

[18:48] The result of Sewall Soul searching. The selling of Joseph is similar in form to hundreds of Puritan sermons that you must have heard and read.
A statement of the text, an elaboration of the text studded with biblical and other authorities in Latin quotations.
A series of objections with their answers and a conclusion or use, backed up by a quotation from accepted biblical scholar Sewall is Text Waas.
For as much as liberty is in real value next until life, none ought to part with it themselves or deprive others of it.
But upon most mature consideration, in a cautious, un dogmatic way, he elaborated this text.
Using Joseph as his model. He proceeded to equate Josephs experience with man stealing and then man stealing with slavery, proving the moral liability of the last from the known immorality of the first.

[19:42] If you imagine yourself in Boston in 1700 in the twilight of the strict puritanism of your grandparent’s, with the concepts of grace and the literal truth of the gospel looming large Sewall is, text Reads is convincing.

[19:56] His opening statement calls back to the story in Genesis of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, her coat of many colors.
In that story, Joseph was his father, Jacob’s favorite, and his jealous brothers attacked him and sold him to the Ishmael Lights is a slave.
Reflecting this in the statement that liberty is second only to life itself, he asks whether the Bay Colony was unjustly denying its growing enslaved black population that vital liberty.

[20:23] Writing in the Massachusetts Historical Review in 2002 past, podcast guest professor Mark Peterson notes, We know the immediate circumstances that prompted Sewall to writers pamphlet in his own words.
The numerous nous of slaves at this day in the province and the uneasiness of them under their slavery have put many upon thinking whether the foundation of it be firmly and well laid Here.
Sewall stood on solid ground, according to available estimates from the time the number of slaves in Massachusetts more than doubled between 16 76 and 17 0 a from roughly 200 to about 550.
And 75% of those 550 slaves lived in the city of Boston.
From the perspective of white Bostonians in 1700 Africans had become far more numerous than in the 16 seventies.
When Sewall came of age, Sewall concludes.
It is most certain that all men, as they’re the sons of Adam, are co heirs and have equal right on deliver T and all other outward comforts of life.

[21:31] Soon Sewall turns to the current practice of slavery in the colonies, saying Tis pity There should be more caution used in buying a horse or a little lifeless dust.
Then there isn’t purchasing men and women when, as they are the offspring of God and their liberty is more precious than gold.
And seeing God have said he that steel with a man and Celik Um, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
This law being of everlasting equity, wherein man stealing is ranked amongst the most atrocious of capital crimes.
What louder cry can to be made of the celebrated warning caveat emptor or caveat emptor or buyer beware.
And this contact doesn’t mean that the buyers should beware of being ripped off.
Instead, he should beware of his immortal soul.
Sewall accorded accidents to establish that man stealing was considered a mortal sin.
And that same passage have been incorporated into the 16 41 Massachusetts body of liberties making Man stealing, also a capital crime in the Bay Colony.

[22:37] Sewall makes an explicitly racist argument that because enslaved Africans in the colony display,
such a disparity in their conditions, color and hair that they can never embody with us, as many Negro Men is, there are among us so many empty places there are in our trained bands, and the place is taken up of men that might make husbands for our daughters.
Along with what he believed with negative influences of slavery on the white English residents of Boston, he also laid out how being enslaved harm the Africans held here in the Bay Colony.

[23:09] It is likewise most lamentable to think how in taking Negroes out of Africa and selling of them here, that which God has joined together, men do boldly rend asunder men from their country, husbands from their wives, parents from their Children.
How horrible is the unclean nous mortality, if not murder that the ships are guilty of that bring great crowds of these miserable men and women.

[23:33] Judge Sewall Than anticipated and rebutted for arguments against his conclusions.
First, he said, The’s Blackmore’s are the posterity of Champ and therefore are under the curse of slavery.
This is a reference to the curse of Hamm wishes a primary biblical justification of slavery as long as slavery existed in America.
Lawrence Towner explains this one. The first objection offered is that the Negroes, as descendants of ham, were condemned to slavery for hams.
Having seen the nakedness of his father, Noah Sewall countered this by arguing that no one uncalled for should be the executioner of the vindictive wrath of God,
by questioning with the help of David Perry’s of Heidelberg, the extent to which all of hams posterity were included in the curse,
and by raising doubts about the descent of the Negro race from ham.

[24:26] The second objection was an argument that also remained common up through the 19th century and was reflected in Robert E. Lee’s belief that slavery was a form of necessary instruction.

[24:37] Quote. The slaves are brought out of a pagan country into places where the gospel is preached.
Basically that slavery was justified because Africans would be exposed to Christianity while they might not have been had they not been kidnapped, shipped across the ocean and forced the labour under fear of torture and death.
Sewall is response to this argument is remarkably simple. Evil must not be done.
That good may come of it, though he, of course, as a biblical flourish.
The extraordinary and comprehensive benefit occurring to the Church of God and to Joseph Personally did not rectify his brother In sale of him, I’ll skip to the fourth and final argument for a moment.
Oh, Abraham had servants bought with his money and born in this house.
If the great founder upon whose covenant with God, Judaism, Islam and Christianity are all founded could own another man, didn’t that mean that slavery was permissible for Christians of this argument?
Towner said, Sewall could not refute this directly.
The evidence, for example, Genesis, Chapter 17 Verse 27.
All the men of his house, born in the house and bought with the money of the stranger, was incontrovertible.

[25:52] All Sewall could say was that he did not know all the circumstances of the purchase, and he must assume it was lawful because Abraham did the purchasing the third counter argument the judge Sewall gave waas.
The Africans have wars with one another. Our ships bring the lawful captives taken in those wars.

[26:12] This, of course, links back to the body of liberties and the exception to the prohibition on bond slavery for lawful captives taken in just wars, Sewall is rebuttal begins with the practical.
If the justification is for just wars, how did the residents of Massachusetts Bay Colony know whether a war and far away Africa is just?
And how did they know whether the captives they purchased were lawful?
He says. For artists known, their wars are much such as where between Jacob’s sons and their brother, Joseph, if they be between town and town, provincial or national, every war is upon one side.
Unjust, an unlawful war, can’t make lawful captives and, by receiving, were in danger to promote and partake in their barbarous cruelties.

[27:00] He continues with an argument that I think is truly remarkable, not only because it still rings true today, but because it gives evidence of a sense of empathy, of being able to envision oneself in the shoes of the enslave.
That’s too often absence from debates about slavery, he said.
I’m sure if some gentlemen should go down to the Brewster’s to take the air and fish and a stronger party from whole should surprise them and sell them for slaves to a ship outward bound, they would think themselves unjustly dealt with both by sellers and buyers.
And yet tis to be feared. We have no other kind of title to our slaves and continuing with a verse from Matthew, he said.
Therefore, all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so, to them, for this is the law in the profits.

[27:50] It’s this ability to see oneself reflected in the faces of the enslaved there was missing from Thomas Jefferson’s boasting about paying for Monticello with black Children who knew how to make nails from George Washington’s relentless pursuit of his enslaved cook own a judge who escaped in New Hampshire,
or from James Madison’s proposal for a 3/5 compromise.
It was the universality of morals that was missing from Robert E. Lee’s belief that exposure to Christianity justified slavery or from Alexander Stephens, claim that the founding of the Confederacy that its cornerstone rests upon the great truth.
That the Negro is not equal to the white man.
That slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.

[28:32] Publishing this anti slavery tracked did not endear Judge Sewall to his peers in Boston.
The Cotton Mather did not enslave anyone yet in his household. What is miss? Who would teach him The African tradition of inoculation against smallpox was a gift from his congregation. Five years later, Mother was deeply invested in. The concept of slavery is a way of christianizing Africans.
He published a book on the concept in 17 06 After enslaving Oneismus mother would react violently to the selling of Joseph, as described by Lawrence Towner,
in 17 01 Cotton Mather became enraged because Sewall had opposed increased mother’s plan to live in Boston.
While continuing to hold the office of President of Harvard in cowardly fashion, Mather berated Sewall not to his face.
But through Samuel Jr.
Then only an apprentice mother told the younger Sewall that while the judge pleaded much for Negroes, he had used increase Mather worse than a Negro.
He spoke so loudly, said Sewall, that people in the street might hear him.

[29:37] Nobody, however, was is angry about the selling of Joseph as Adams and slaver John Safian Albert fund, Frank says of Saffan.
Undoubtedly he was sharply stung by Sewall is thinly veiled accusation that he was a moral transgressor and a bad Christian,
stunned by this unexpected attack by a very much younger brother jurist who had never before said a word about slavery but who had now formulated in the selling of Joseph the Unarticulated, an outraged conscience of the old theocracy.

[30:07] Then, a year after Sewall is Pamphlet was published, the case of Adam came before Judge Sewall is court.
Towner points out the entanglements among the small number of tourists in Boston, which was still a small town at the turn of the 18th century,
in March 17 01 The case came up first before Judge Sewall, then before Sewall and Pin Townsend and then before the Superior Court, to which, in the meantime, Saffan had been appointed,
from the first, Sewall had advised staff, and a free Adam probably handed him a copy of a selling of Joseph.
In addition to giving this gratuitous advice, Sewall was openly critical of Saturn’s role as a judge Saffan had not only refused to disqualify himself in the case of Adam, he had, according to Sewall, also tampered with the jury,
in 17 01 Saffan wrote his own pamphlet, titled A Brief in Candid Answer Toe, a late credit sheet entitled The Selling of Joseph.

[31:05] By the standards of the time, people believe that he had effectively countered Judge Sewall is radical anti slavery tracked in his 2002 article, Mark Peterson said.
A year after its publication, a fellow judge on the Massachusetts Superior Court, John Saffan, attacked Sewall and Print.
By most accounts, Saffan got the better of the argument according to social and legal standards of the day, Saffan refuted.
Each of Sewall is objections to slavery, and the selling of Joseph subsequently fell into obscurity.
Only a single copy of the original edition survives. It was reprinted only once in the 18th century and not again until 18 63.

[31:47] Sewall is efforts failed to spark of viable anti slavery movement in 18th century Massachusetts, and no direct line of influence can be drawn from Sewall to Garrison and Boston’s other 19th century abolitionists.

[32:01] Writing in the New England Quarterly in 2002 James J. Allegro explains that Muchas Sewall is interest in the slavery issue was sparked by the sudden increase in the number of enslaved Africans in Boston.
The acceptance of slavery in Boston doomed America’s first abolitionist track to obscurity.
Scholars of the last half century rightly note that the temperate, morally decent Yankees of New England lure were not nearly as benevolent in their treatment of slaves and servants, as had been previously assumed,
as religious passion declined and an individualistic, commercially oriented society arose during the late 16 hundreds and early 17 hundreds.
A shift personified in the disagreement between Sewall and Saffan, secular modes of interaction and a profit oriented approach to labour promoted a system of perpetual servitude supported by notions of African inferiority.
As more and more slaves entered the province after the late 17th century and as more and more colonists came to depend on the institution, contemporary historians argue that Sewell’s attack against bondage carried increasingly less weight with the general populace.

[33:07] With the selling of Joseph mostly faded from the collective memory of Massachusetts, abolitionism had to be reinvented in Boston in the 19th century.
The first prominent voice of this new generation was black radical David Walker, whose book and appealed with colored citizens of the World, Frederick Douglass would say, startled the land like a trump of coming judgment.
You can hear more about David Walker and his appeal. In last week’s episode, black abolitionists built the new movement, but white abolitionists would define how it was remembered in the decades after emancipation.
That tension is at the heart of a current debate about monuments in Boston.

[33:48] Boston’s only Confederate monument, a stone tablet recognizing the 13 Confederate prisoners who died at Fort Warren was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1963 when people in Boston definitely should have known better.
It was removed in the wake of the 2017 Unite the right rally in Charlottesville.
Now the debate about monuments in Boston is centered on the Emancipation Memorial in Park Square.
It shows Abraham Lincoln standing with his right hand, resting on a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, while his left hand is stretched out in front of them, apparently sprinkling the magic pixie dust of freedom over the half naked black man who’s prostrated at his feet.
It portrays emancipation as a gift magnanimously presented by white America to a black population that’s forever powerless, passive and grateful to the white Saviour.
Again, there were people who knew better at the time. The statute not only ignores the black Americans who are serving in Congress and in state legislatures under reconstruction, it ignores the black soldiers who rallied to the flag and fought to end slavery,
soldiers like James Trotter and William Harvey Carney of the 54th Massachusetts volunteers who have to wait until the 20th century to be recognized for his bravery on the field of battle in 18 63.

[35:09] It also ignores decades of work by black abolitionists before the Civil War, often dragging along unwilling white moderates.
Like the subject of the statue. Abraham Lincoln, Boston’s Emancipation Memorial is an exact copy of a statue in Washington, D. C.
At the dedication of the original in 18 76 Frederick Douglass pointed out that Lincoln was late to the abolition party, saying President Lincoln was a white man and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race.
Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull and indifferent.
What does all this mean for Boston’s Emancipation Memorial? Should it be removed or re contextualized? Or stay as it is?
I’m honestly not sure, but I am sure that although criticism of the statue may seem like it’s coming out of nowhere, black Bostonians have always known that it’s patronising.
And even when it was created, people like Frederick Douglass, James Trotter and William Carney knew better.

[36:14] To learn more about the selling of Joseph, check out this week’s show Notes.
Hub history dot com slash 191 We’ll have a link to Samuel Sewall is pamphlet as well as a transcription of John Stephens Response.
We’ll have articles about the pamphlet in its impact from Mark Peterson, Lawrence Towner, Albert von Frank and James Allegro,
also include links to a recent article about Boston’s Emancipation Memorial by searching for black Confederates author Kevin Levin and the text of the speech Frederick Douglass delivered at the unveiling of our Statues Sister monument in Washington.
And of course, we’ll have links to information about our upcoming event and birth of a movement, this week’s Boston Book Club pick.

Interview With Nikki

Jake – Interview:
[36:59] Before I let you go, There’s an exciting announcement to make. Co host Nicky will be joining the Old North Foundation as the organization’s executive director. Her first day is tomorrow.
Nikki joins us now to talk about the organization and her new role.
Nikki. Welcome to the show.

Nikki – Interview:
[37:17] Hi.

Jake – Interview:
[37:18] So can you tell us a little bit about the organization first?

Nikki – Interview:
[37:22] The Old North Foundation’s mission is to promote the values of freedom, liberty and civic engagement.
The organization does this through the interpretation and preservation of the Old North Church and historic site on the Freedom Trail.
Many people, I think, are surprised to know that the church has an active congregation.
So the foundation works in close partnership with the Episcopal Diocese, as well as the National Park Service and the Freedom Trail Foundation.
In my role, I’ll oversee the foundations, operation and maintenance of the old North Historic Site, along with fundraising and strategic planning activities in advance of the 3/100 anniversary of the building of the church in 2023,
the 250th anniversary of the lantern hanging in 2025.

Jake – Interview:
[38:09] Well, that certainly sounds like an exciting time to be joining Old North.

Nikki – Interview:
[38:12] It is. And in addition to the anniversary milestones, I think it’s also an important time for old North church toe lend inspiration through the educational programs.
Old North works to emphasize the importance of active citizenship in the power of community action.
We can’t ignore that. Over the church’s nearly 300 year history,
people of color women, immigrants, LGBT Q folks and many others have had to overcome really substantial barriers to full civic engagement.
To me, one of the primary reasons to explore history is to do better in our present.
So I’m looking forward to working with the old North staff and board to present the legacy of the church’s history and its people in a context that’s really relevant and inspirational. Today.

Jake – Interview:
[39:03] More importantly, when can the public come see you?

Nikki – Interview:
[39:06] The site will open on July 2nd with limited hours were finalizing the details and plan to announce the full schedule soon.
And you know, this summer is really gonna be this summer of the staycation. So I hope that people will follow us on social media.
Um, we’ll check the old North website and come see a soon.

Jake – Interview:
[39:27] So, most important of all, what does your new job mean for the podcast?

Nikki – Interview:
[39:32] Well, I think that my new job means that I am officially leaving the podcast, Um, which, you know, our listeners know I have not been very actively Lee because of other changes that were happening in my work life.
But in taking on this role and knowing what this summer is gonna look like, Ah, I think I will be stepping back.

Jake – Interview:
[39:56] Well, I hope we can convince you to come back as a guest every once in a while. Maybe when there’s something exciting happening in Old North to share.

Nikki – Interview:
[40:01] I think we’ll be able to do that.

Jake – Interview:
[40:04] Well, Nikki, thanks for joining me today.

Nikki – Interview:
[40:06] Thank you.

Outro

Jake:
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Jake:
[41:01] Apple podcasts is still the most popular podcast out.
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