Get your free ticket to attend an online discussion of a shared history of slavery by Marjory Gomez O’Toole of the Little Compton Historical Society. She is author of, “If Jane Should Want to be Sold: Stories of Enslavement, Indenture and Freedom in Little Compton, Rhode Island”.
In 1746, Thomas Church in his last will and testament allowed the sale of his slave, “if my Negro woman Jane after my decease should want to be sold.” Many lives intertwined between the Newport slave trade, and the people of color in both Newport and Little Compton. Ms. O’Toole will explore the various lives and stories of those involved.
Sponsored by the Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project.
Ms. O’Toole will share the stories of Hannah, Jane, Sampson Shaw, Henry Manton, Moselle Gray and other local people of color impacted by New England’s 200-year-long practice of slavery, forced indenture and partial freedom. The stories will illuminate the strong ties between Little Compton and Newport and focus on the very personal nature of bondage in the North. Ms. O’Toole’s research has focused on primary source documents and has returned the voices of 200 enslaved people of Native American and African American descent to the area’s local history.
Little Compton had many connections to Newport and even to the slave south. Willard Gray of Little Compton inherited slaves from Arnold Gray of North Carolina upon Arnold’s death. However, Willard freed one slave, Moselle Gray, who was brought north to live with the white family in their home. She attended school in Little Compton, and eventually moved to Newport. Moselle’s descendants in Newport, the Masseys, have provided oral histories of their ancestor, and photos of her as a child.
The Newport Daily News described Ms. O’Toole’s research into the history of unfree people of Rhode Island:
“One of the stories that affected O’Toole the most, however, was the experience of a nameless slave in Westport, Massachusetts, whose Quaker mistress had him stripped, hung by his hands, and beaten to death. While there were laws regulating treatment of slaves, these were widely ignored. The woman was reprimanded by her Quaker congregation; but on expressing repentance for her actions a year later, she was received back into the church.
“O’Toole has found that there was historically a deliberate effort to soften this distasteful aspect of New England’s past, beginning with northern slaveholders themselves, who even in their own day attempted to ‘downplay the negative aspects of slavery’ by portraying slaveholders as generous and kind and slaves as satisfied with their lot.”
