Through the apparatus of decision-making, continued activism was achieved by deciding what would not be enacted and choosing what would be done to gain and secure freedom and safety.
Prince Hall, who would eventually become a leader in Boston’s free Black community, is manumitted from enslavement.
Tony travels to Billerica and, in Penelope Vassall’s name, pays £20 to purchase and manumit his daughter, Flora.
Prince Hall and sixty-six other men form the African Lodge 459, the first African American masonic order.
John and Penelope Vassall and their families are forced to flee the colony with other Loyalists during the American Revolution. Tony and Cuba and their children are able to reunite and move into a building on John Vassall’s abandoned property. Tony tends land on the Vassall estate and is paid for work on the Royall property in Medford. He also receives compensation for caring for his wife and children, or “supporting a Negro woman & 2 children,” according to Middlesex probate records.
Tony petitions the Massachusetts Legislature for ownership of ¾ acres of John Vassall’s abandoned property.
Elizabeth Freeman, an enslaved woman known as Mumbett, and an enslaved man known as Brom, successfully petition for their freedom in a legal case known as "Brom & Bett v. Ashley."
An enslaved man named Quock Walker successfully petitions for his freedom, challenging the constitutionality of slavery in Massachusetts.
Tony and Cuba purchase property and a house at Shepard Street and Massachusetts Avenue, a site which becomes central to the establishment of the Black community in Cambridge known as “Lewisville.”
Primus Hall, Prince Hall’s son, and leader in the free Black community in Boston, opens the African School for Black children.
After Tony's death, Cuba successfully petitions for the continuance of his 1780 annual pension on the basis that it was paid from John Vassall's estate, and she was enslaved by John Vassall, while Tony was not.
Darby signs a petition to the Massachusetts legislature to incorporate the African School Association in support of the education of “people of colour” in Boston.
Darby’s sister Catherine marries Adam Lewis, who becomes a founding member of the free Black Lewisville Community in Cambridge.
Darby’s sister Catherine and her husband Adam Lewis purchase a triangular lot at Garden Street and Concord Street, adding to the growing Lewisville Community in Cambridge.
The Abiel Smith School opens next door to the African Meeting House.
Darby’s son-in-law, Jonas W. Clark, signs a petition to incorporate the "Infant School Association for the Coloured Youth of Boston" in support of the newly created Abiel Smith School.
The Massachusetts Legislature passes the 'Personal Liberties' Act, or the "Latimer Law,” after sixty-six thousand people sign a petition to prevent the re-enslavement of formerly enslaved people in Massachusetts. Many of these signatures were collected at the African Meeting House.
Darby and his son-in-law Jonas W. Clark are signatories to resolutions at the New England Anti-Slavery Society convention.
Jonas W. Clark and others petition to incorporate an African American militia known as the Massasoit Guard, intended to protect the residents of Beacon Hill from "slave catchers." Attorney Robert Morris repeatedly petitions on their behalf, including an appeal to have the word “white” stricken from the state’s militia law. Despite these efforts, the Massasoit Guard is never officially recognized by the state.
Abolitionist Wendell Phillips records Darby Vassall’s last will and testament.
Darby visits his birthplace, the John Vassall House, now the home of the famous poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Lunsford Lane, American Anti-slavery Society member, and author of a memoir about his former enslavement in North Carolina, is also present, and sits so long with Wadsworth that Darby is eventually "driven away."
Catherine and Adam Lewis join twenty-one Black Cambridge residents who set sail for Liberia to establish civil and religious liberty, and to create “a nation among nations, like the Pilgrim Fathers.”
Darby, his daughter Frances, and his son-in-law Jonas W. Clark, sign a remonstrance against the repeal of the “Personal Liberties Law,” which protects free Black people living in free states from fugitive slave laws. It is also signed by famous authors Harriet Jacobs and William Cooper Nell.
1. "Jno Nicholas Jun / to / Flora Negro Child / Manumission." Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch
2. “Jno Nicholas Jun / to / Flora Negro Child / Manumission." Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch
3. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, June 14, 1844. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/gb19h0445
4.Harris, Thaddeus Mason, et al. A discourse delivered before the African Society in Boston, 15th of July, on the anniversary celebration of the abolition of the slave trade. Boston: Printed by Phelps and Farnham, 1822. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress
5. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions; Massachusetts Archives Collection. v.186-Revolution Petitions, 1779-1780. SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives. Boston, Mass.
6.Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions; Massachusetts Archives Collection. v.186-Revolution Petitions, 1779-1780. SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives. Boston, Mass.
7. Miniature portrait, watercolor on ivory by Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick, 1811
8. State of Massachusetts-Bay; Printed by Benjamin Edes & Son - A Constitution or Frame of Government; agreed upon by the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-BayThe first article of the Massachusetts Constitution, "A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts"
9. State of Massachusetts-Bay; Printed by Benjamin Edes & Son - A Constitution or Frame of Government; agreed upon by the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-BayThe first article of the Massachusetts Constitution, "A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts"
10. Portrait: 7.5 cm x 5.5 cm; in gilded wood frame
11. Portrait: 7.5 cm x 5.5 cm; in gilded wood frame
12. The Abiel Smith School, 1843. Engraving. The Boston Almanac for 1843
13. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, June 14, 1844. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/gb19h0445
14. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, June 14, 1844. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/gb19h0445
15. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions; Senate Unpassed Legislation 1857, leave to withdraw, SC1/series 231. Massachusetts Archives. Boston, Mass.
16. "Wendell Phillips." Photograph. [ca. 1859–1870]. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/pk02cn548
17. Lunsford Lane; or, Another helper from North Carolinaby Hawkins, William G. (William George), 1823-1909
18. Coyle, Randolph. "Map of Liberia." Map. Baltimore Md.: Lith. by E. Weber & Co., 1845. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/ww72bp03c
19. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions; Passed Acts; St. 1861, c.91, SC1/series 229. Massachusetts Archives. Boston, Mass.
20. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions; Passed Acts; St. 1861, c.91, SC1/series 229. Massachusetts Archives. Boston, Mass.
21. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions; Passed Acts; St. 1861, c.91, SC1/series 229. Massachusetts Archives. Boston, Mass.
