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Sam Adams and slavery
By adamg on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 11:25am
J.L. Bell takes a look at Adams and slavery - he was personally opposed but did not publicly say much for fear of tearing the nascent country apart.
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Comments
Maybe I need to read into
Maybe I need to read into this more then... Did she move up to Boston and then still lived in his house and took care of his kid? Was she getting paid to do that or was she still working for "room and board"?
It does sound like he was much nicer then many others, but before I give him praise I just want to make sure he did more then just say "well she isnt a slave but now she works for me for nothing."
He refused to have a slave
He refused to have a slave in the house. Surry worked as a servant - as was common at the time and long after. She was essentially part of the extended family. At the time, working for room and board would have been a far better choice than what she would have found elsewhere. Slavery was not ended in Massachusetts until 1783, and life for former slaves was no picnic. I'd say that Samuel Adams was one of the good guys, considering the time he lived in.
There's very little
There's very little information about Surry, and I don't think Adams's personal accounts have survived, so it may be impossible to know what their economic arrangement was.
However, having guaranteed food, clothing, shelter, and such medical care as there was in exchange for labor was a common arrangement at the time. That's how apprenticeships and other personal indentures worked.
I plan to look for Surry (Adams?) in census or town records for her later years, but I don't hold out much hope. Poor people who could support themselves are the most invisible. They don't show up in property records, but they don't show up in the welfare records, either. And Surry was a woman of color on top of that.