LongRoad3

	Long Road to Freedom, continued

Historian William T. Davis estimated that, in 1740, there were approximately 50 slaves in Plymouth.

	One was a 22-year-old named Jean.
"girl named Jean"

Jean was sold in 1738 by Jonathon Bourne of Sandwich to Thomas Spooner of Plymouth for £105. For an image of the 1738 document (with a complete transcription), click HERE.

Masters were by no means universally kind. The actions of even the most “responsible” owners resulted in broken families and children sold away from their mothers.

In 1753, Lazarus LeBaron bought a boy named Plymouth for £23.
For an image of the 1753 document (with a complete transcription), click HERE.	"Boy Nam'd Plymouth"

In a 1766 letter from Ebenezer Spooner of Middleboro to his brother Ephraim Spooner of Plymouth, Ebenezer said he had decided to sell his man Cuff:

	“a fine likely young fellow about 19 or 20 years of age” in order to pay off his very significant debts. He hoped to receive £500 or £600 cash for Cuff.
"my Negro man Cuff"

There is no record of whether or not Ebenezer succeeded in selling Cuff although George Watson of Plymouth is recorded as owning a man named “Cuff” in 1768. Ebenezer’s brother, Ephraim, was not a slave owner.

For an image of the 1766 document (with a complete transcription), click HERE.

Some of Plymouth’s most outspoken “Patriots” saw no inconsistency in owning slaves themselves. The leader of the Plymouth Sons of Liberty, Theophilus Cotton, owned Quamony Quash. Cotton and Quash both served in the Revolutionary War.

Other Patriots spoke against slavery. James Otis of Cape Cod, whose sister Mercy married Plymouthean James Warren, wrote in 1764

“The colonists are by the law of nature freeborn, as indeed all men are, white or black.”

Not all the African-American residents of Massachusetts were slave – and not all were silent. Paul Cuffe, an African-American shipbuilder from Dartmouth and a free man, petitioned the Massachusetts legislature in 1780. Cuffe said that African Americans should not have to pay taxes, since they had

“no voice of influence in the election of those who tax us.”