LongRoad4

Long Road to Freedom, continued

The New Guinea Settlement at Parting Ways

The “New Guinea Settlement at Parting Ways” began its official life in 1792, when the Town of Plymouth "voted and granted a strip of land about twenty rods wide and about a mile and a half long on the easterly side of the sheep pasture, to such persons as will clear the same."

The “persons” were four African-American veterans of the Revolutionary War: Cato Howe, Plato Turner, Quamany Quash and Prince Goodwin.

The names of three (No. 2 Quamany Quash, No. 4 Cato Howe and No. 8 Plato Turner) are found in the Revolutionary War recruiting book of Nathaniel Goodwin.

Click HERE to see a larger image of the recruiting book.

These four Patriots came from varied backgrounds. Quamany Quash, who fought for liberty for his country, was himself a slave; he was not emancipated until after his service in the Revolutionary War. Plato Turner and Prince Goodwin were former slaves. Cato Howe was a freeman who had probably never been enslaved.

Quash seems to have been present at the Siege of Boston; Howe was at Valley Forge and may have been at Bunker Hill. Both Quash and Howe probably served in the New York campaign as well as the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Saratoga and Monmouth.

A document in the collections of Pilgrim Hall Museum MAY be a letter written from Cato Howe to his employer, Ephraim Spooner, in 1777 during the New York campaign. The letter, however, is torn and has no name at the bottom so we will never know for certain. Click HERE for an image of that letter (with a complete transcription).

Research is still ongoing in an effort to document the history and service records of all four veterans as well as the other African-American and Native American men from Plymouth who served in the Revolutionary War. Click HERE for the full list of African-Americans and Native Americans listed in the Nathaniel Goodwin recruiting book..

After the Revolutionary War, John Adams drafted a new constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That constitution read "all men are born free and equal, and have…the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties." After several court cases in the early 1780s, slavery was abolished in Massachusetts.

Theophilus Cotton did not free Quamony Quash until 1781. Cotton stated this was being done

“In consideration of my Negro Quomminys having inlisted himself at my request in the service of the Continent for three years, and upon his faithfully serving the full time without departing therefrom, and my receiving the one half of the wages due for said Service, together with the bounty given by the Town, do at his comminceing twenty one years of age, quit all pretentions to him as a slave… I do allow said Quamony out of the bounty three hundred paper Dollars…and five hard ones, with half of his Wages.”