New England Bound

In this chapter Warren explores how English enslavers and the people they enslaved experienced kinship and family in New England. While many enslaved people worked and lived in English families’ homes and had frequent contact with them, they were not considered a part of the family. Indeed, the first generation of enslaved people to come to New England had been separated from their own kin in Africa. Warren points to a court case concerning an enslaved Angolan woman named Hagar who was accused of the crime of fornication when she gave birth to her infant. While the court was keen to punish Hagar for sexual activity, Hagar took the opportunity of speaking to the court to air her own grievances, explaining that slave traders had cruelly separated her from her husband in Angola and their young son. Because they could not hide pregnancies or births, enslaved women such as Hagar were vulnerable to being punished by the colonist authorities for their sexual relationships, regardless of whether these relationships were consensual or not.

In 1662 the Virginia General Assembly ruled that all children would inherit the legal status of their mothers, and therefore were automatically either free or enslaved. Fornication, or sex outside of marriage, was illegal for everyone in New England and was often punished with whipping or fines. However, “Christians,” or English colonists, paid double the fines if convicted of “fornication” with African enslaved people, who were also punished for their relations with colonists and even each other.

The English perceived the family as a smaller version of society’s broader hierarchy; fathers were at the top, with mothers, children, servants, and enslaved people forming the lower tiers, living and working under the father’s authority. The colonists had experimented with communal living in the early days of establishing their colony, but soon gave it up; sharing tasks and land prompted resentment among the residents. Instead, they favored nuclear families living in private homes and on private property. Warren contrasts the English colonist experience of family with that of enslaved people: The English were patriarchal and patrilineal, formed permanent emotional and financial bonds, and inherited wealth and assets from their kin. Enslaved people, on the other hand, traced descent matrilineally (since children’s status as enslaved people was legally ‘inherited’ from their mother), formed temporary bonds with kin because enslavers could separate them at any time, and were inherited as property by colonists.

Enslaved Africans experienced numerous forms of traumatic separation from family. Firstly, many were separated from their families and communities in Africa when they were initially captured or sold to merchants. Even if they had been born in New England, they were still at risk of sudden separation from parents, siblings, and peers, as enslavers could sell them away at any time. Because enslaved people were more scarce in rural New England, some did not have any kin or even any other Black acquaintances in the vicinity.

Generally, enslaved people were not allowed to get married at all; however, sometimes this occurred. The laws forbidding enslaved people from sexual relationships were frequently disobeyed. Warren refers to court cases that reveal that enslaved people often engaged in forbidden relationships with each other and with colonists; for instance, there are numerous examples of English servants being punished for their illegal romantic relationships with enslaved people. Court records reveal that colonial authorities interrogated enslaved women about their pregnancies, forced them to reveal the fathers of their children, and punished them for fornication.

Some enslaved women were investigated when their infants were stillborn and were accused of infanticide. Others struggled to find support while birthing their infants. In one case an enslaved Indigenous woman left her enslaver’s property to seek help from nearby Indigenous families when she was giving birth. While English women who had children with enslaved men technically passed on their free status to their children, these children were discriminated against in the colony. For instance, one English servant named Elizabeth Parker had a son with enslaved man Silvanus Warro; the authorities forced their child into 30 years of servitude in spite of his “free” status.

Living without family caused particular hardship for elderly enslaved people. Without anyone to care for them in their old age, these enslaved people suffered physically and emotionally. To make matters worse, many enslavers freed their elderly enslaved people once they became too old to work, abruptly leaving them without food or shelter. Eventually colonists passed a law requiring that enslavers provide for indigent enslaved people to prevent them from becoming homeless. Warren cites the story of a man named John Whan, who articulated his desire to age and die in the company of his “‘countrymen’” (215). Whan had been freed by his deceased enslaver and so decided to leave New Haven and return to his previous community in New Amsterdam where there were more African people like himself. Warren explains that people such as John Whan had “no safety net of kin and love” when they lived alone in English colonist communities (216).

In this chapter Warren explores how New England laws applied to enslaved people and how and why some enslaved people chose to break these laws. Suicide was criminalized and considered a taboo sin by colonists. The author explains how one enslaved man died by suicide from a gunshot wound to his chest. Because enslaved people’s deaths were an inconvenience to their enslavers, who lost their valuable investment in that person and their labor, Warren considers suicide an act of resistance, and wonders how enslaved people may have had a different moral or spiritual perspective on suicide. Warren argues that instances such as suicides or criminal activity forced the New England authorities to use their legal system to deal with enslaved people, and slavery in general, thereby refining their laws on the matter and solidifying New England as a “slave regime.”

Initially, Indigenous and African people in New England were allowed to carry weapons, and some were even required to train in the local militias that defended the colonies. However, colonists soon changed these laws and banned African and Indigenous people from owning weapons, such as guns, out of an anxiety that they would use such arms against colonists themselves. Court cases reveal that some enslaved people were tried and convicted of violent crimes and faced punishments such as fines, whippings, imprisonment, or execution. Because enslavers were responsible for paying for the fees of an enslaved person’s imprisonment, they were highly incentivized to sell the enslaved person elsewhere, thereby recouping some of their investment without losing more money.

Because of the heavy, conspicuous nature of 17th-century guns and the fact that it was illegal for enslaved people to own them, gun crime was rare amongst enslaved people: Guns were difficult to steal, hide, and use. Fire, however, was an ideal weapon for enslaved people, since it was ubiquitous in every household and easily spread and caught on to the colonist’s timber and thatch homes and buildings. Indeed, local Indigenous people relied on fire during their attack on Lancaster during King Philip's War. English colonists were forced to flee from their burning homes, whereupon they were killed or captured by Indigenous forces. Colonist Mary Rowlandson recalled the terror of leaving her burning home only to be captured and temporarily enslaved by her attackers; she was freed after colonists purchased her freedom months later. The English had similarly used fire as a means of trapping and killing villages of Indigenous people in the Pequot War.

There are many examples in the court records of enslaved people being accused of arson of homes and workplaces. By 1652 Massachusetts had specifically outlawed arson and codified the death penalty as punishment for this crime. Warren argues that colonists were exceedingly afraid of fire and aware of the constant risk of arson since fire was so accessible and could not be kept away from enslaved people. In one instance, an enslaved Black woman named Maria was convicted of arson and burned at the stake. According to Warren, this particularly painful method of execution, which was very rare in New England, could be attributed to Maria’s low status as an enslaved person, her gender, and the fact that the authorities wanted to deter other enslaved people from seeking similar vengeance. A male enslaved person convicted of the same crime was hanged.

Another crime was violating curfew, which prevented residents from walking outside at night. Warren wonders if enslaved people took advantage of the night time hours to experience some mobility and freedom as their enslavers were asleep. Drunkenness was another common crime; by 1690 colonists were banned from selling alcohol to Indigenous and African people. Theft was also fairly common, and to make stealing more difficult, the authorities banned colonists from buying goods from any Black person without their enslaver’s permission. This ensured that enslaved people could not easily sell stolen goods from the homes where they worked. As punishment, convicted thieves were branded with the letter B for Burglar. Food was a popular item to steal, and Warren ponders if most enslaved people were underfed or starving, since records show that some of them risked significant punishments in order to have more to eat.

Yet another common crime was simply running away. Enslavers advertised fugitives from slavery on notices that contained descriptions of each person, hoping to recapture them and regain their value. Indigenous people who knew the local landscape and may have had connections in nearby communities, may have found it easier to successfully escape their enslavement. In contrast, enslaved Africans were more conspicuous and less likely to know New England’s landscape so well. Additionally, they faced the threat of being perceived as colonizers and attacked by Indigenous people who wanted to challenge English colonization. Warren argues that Indigenous people did not distinguish between English and African people, noting that when a native alliance attacked Deerfield they killed numerous enslaved Africans as well as English people, in spite of the fact that they were “coerced colonists” (252).

In one remarkable story, an Indigenous woman was able to escape from enslavement in the West Indies and board a ship back to New England. When she arrived there, she was recaptured and assigned to a new household, where she escaped once again. Escape at sea was rare, but not impossible, since New England had many busy ports. As always, colonial law tried to thwart these attempts: In 1690 colonists passed a law banning any ship from leaving a New England port with Black people on board.