Slavery in Newtown
by Sue Roman
Slavery was a fixture of Newtown throughout the Colonial Period. One of every 10 families owned slaves. A slave-owning family would typically have one or two slaves, sometimes three, both men and women. At a time of labor scarcity, bonded labor was used to augment family labor, wage labor, and indentured servant labor.
The people enslaved in Newtown had typically traveled through the West Indies first. There, on the British-controlled islands of Barbados, Jamaica, Providence Island, and others, enslaved Africans toiled on sugar cane plantations. Sugar was a wildly profitable commodity when farmed in the West Indies with slave labor. It was so profitable that on mountainous islands with limited growing area, planters didn’t waste any land growing food for the slaves. Connecticut provided food, timber, animals, and other supplies that kept the sugar plantations operating.
The New England shipping industry provided the transportation. Farmers and tradesmen in Connecticut sold their excess product to traders who transported it to seaports. From there it went to the islands. Boats returned from the islands with sugar, molasses, and rum. Molasses was turned into rum in New England and sea captains took it to England and also to West Africa where they traded it for more slaves. They took these slaves to the West Indies.
Sea captains also brought slaves to New England from the West Indies. Sometimes they were Africans who couldn’t be sold on the sugar plantations because they were infirmed. Sometimes the captains were filling requests for a certain type of slave. Slave owners in Connecticut preferred to buy people who had spent time in the West Indies where they picked up some English language and customs.
So the first thing to understand about slavery in Newtown was that it was integrated into the triangle trade where people were taken from Africa as slaves and transported to the plantations in the West Indies, where sugar and molasses from those plantations were sent to Connecticut, and where food, animals, and timber from Connecticut were sent to the plantations. Connecticut was part of a plantation economy, it is just that its plantations were thousands of miles away. Some of the plantations were owned by people living in Connecticut.
In Newtown, enslaved women performed many domestic tasks. They cooked, washed clothes, cleaned, spun and wove cloth, preserved fruit, and made maple sugar. Enslaved men performed every task that free men did. They farmed, built fences, cleared land, milled timber, tapped trees, shoed horses, and tended livestock. They learned the trades of their owners.
When an owner didn’t need their labor, they would job the slave out to someone else who would pay the owner for their services. Enslaved people were particularly important in the households of widows. Not only could they perform heavy work around the house and farm, they could also earn higher wages by working for others than a White woman at the time could make.
Enslaved people lived and ate with the family who owned them. They slept in a garret or room at the back of the house. Rarely did you find separate quarters for the slaves. They received the same medical attention a family member would. Old or infirm slaves were cared for as any dependent of the family would be.
The slaves were part of the hierarchical, patriarchal household, occupying the lowest status. They were deemed people who had some rights. They could legally marry. They went to church with their owners. Many attended Trinity Church and some attended the Congregational Church. Some learned to read so they could read the Bible and prayer books.
Slave owning was common and well-accepted by Newtown society. Town historian Daniel Cruson has identified 43 families in Newtown who owned slaves. Many of the prominent families owned slaves, including the Glovers, the Botsfords, the Booths, the Platts, the Nichols, the Curtisses, and the Hawleys.
There was little abolitionist sentiment in town. The two major churches in town, the Anglican Trinity Church and the Puritan Congregational Church, supported slavery in their theology. Some of their ministers were slave owners.
The peak of slave ownership in Newtown was recorded in the 1790 census. Seventy-one slaves were owned by 46 families. Slaves were 2.5% of the town’s population of 2,774, and 10.3% of the families owned slaves.
Slavery declined in Newtown and in Connecticut following the Revolutionary War but was not completely outlawed until 1848. A 1774 law made it illegal to import slaves into Connecticut. A 1784 law promised to free at the age of 25 any children who were born to enslaved people after 1784. It did not free their parents or other adults. A 1792 law made it illegal to transfer out of the state any free Black or someone entitled to be freed at 25. A 1797 law lowered the age of emancipation from 25 to 21.
The demand for enslaved people was increasing in the U.S. South and in Canada at that time, and people from Newtown were arrested for illegally smuggling Blacks out of state. Between 1790 and 1797 Cyrus Hard, James Glover, Philo Booth, David Nichols, Austin Nichols, and Richard Nichols were brought to court for illegally transporting and selling people.
The 1790 census for Newtown shows 71 slaves and 1 free Black family. The 1800 census shows 18 slaves and 4 free Black families. Twelve slaves were known to have been officially emancipated. The fate of 32 people is unknown. In 1820 there were 4 slaves in Newtown.
Connecticut didn’t legally abolish slavery until 1848 when the General Assembly passed “An Act to Prevent Slavery”.
The people enslaved in Newtown had typically traveled through the West Indies first. There, on the British-controlled islands of Barbados, Jamaica, Providence Island, and others, enslaved Africans toiled on sugar cane plantations. Sugar was a wildly profitable commodity when farmed in the West Indies with slave labor. It was so profitable that on mountainous islands with limited growing area, planters didn’t waste any land growing food for the slaves. Connecticut provided food, timber, animals, and other supplies that kept the sugar plantations operating.
The New England shipping industry provided the transportation. Farmers and tradesmen in Connecticut sold their excess product to traders who transported it to seaports. From there it went to the islands. Boats returned from the islands with sugar, molasses, and rum. Molasses was turned into rum in New England and sea captains took it to England and also to West Africa where they traded it for more slaves. They took these slaves to the West Indies.
Sea captains also brought slaves to New England from the West Indies. Sometimes they were Africans who couldn’t be sold on the sugar plantations because they were infirmed. Sometimes the captains were filling requests for a certain type of slave. Slave owners in Connecticut preferred to buy people who had spent time in the West Indies where they picked up some English language and customs.
So the first thing to understand about slavery in Newtown was that it was integrated into the triangle trade where people were taken from Africa as slaves and transported to the plantations in the West Indies, where sugar and molasses from those plantations were sent to Connecticut, and where food, animals, and timber from Connecticut were sent to the plantations. Connecticut was part of a plantation economy, it is just that its plantations were thousands of miles away. Some of the plantations were owned by people living in Connecticut.
In Newtown, enslaved women performed many domestic tasks. They cooked, washed clothes, cleaned, spun and wove cloth, preserved fruit, and made maple sugar. Enslaved men performed every task that free men did. They farmed, built fences, cleared land, milled timber, tapped trees, shoed horses, and tended livestock. They learned the trades of their owners.
When an owner didn’t need their labor, they would job the slave out to someone else who would pay the owner for their services. Enslaved people were particularly important in the households of widows. Not only could they perform heavy work around the house and farm, they could also earn higher wages by working for others than a White woman at the time could make.
Enslaved people lived and ate with the family who owned them. They slept in a garret or room at the back of the house. Rarely did you find separate quarters for the slaves. They received the same medical attention a family member would. Old or infirm slaves were cared for as any dependent of the family would be.
The slaves were part of the hierarchical, patriarchal household, occupying the lowest status. They were deemed people who had some rights. They could legally marry. They went to church with their owners. Many attended Trinity Church and some attended the Congregational Church. Some learned to read so they could read the Bible and prayer books.
Slave owning was common and well-accepted by Newtown society. Town historian Daniel Cruson has identified 43 families in Newtown who owned slaves. Many of the prominent families owned slaves, including the Glovers, the Botsfords, the Booths, the Platts, the Nichols, the Curtisses, and the Hawleys.
There was little abolitionist sentiment in town. The two major churches in town, the Anglican Trinity Church and the Puritan Congregational Church, supported slavery in their theology. Some of their ministers were slave owners.
The peak of slave ownership in Newtown was recorded in the 1790 census. Seventy-one slaves were owned by 46 families. Slaves were 2.5% of the town’s population of 2,774, and 10.3% of the families owned slaves.
Slavery declined in Newtown and in Connecticut following the Revolutionary War but was not completely outlawed until 1848. A 1774 law made it illegal to import slaves into Connecticut. A 1784 law promised to free at the age of 25 any children who were born to enslaved people after 1784. It did not free their parents or other adults. A 1792 law made it illegal to transfer out of the state any free Black or someone entitled to be freed at 25. A 1797 law lowered the age of emancipation from 25 to 21.
The demand for enslaved people was increasing in the U.S. South and in Canada at that time, and people from Newtown were arrested for illegally smuggling Blacks out of state. Between 1790 and 1797 Cyrus Hard, James Glover, Philo Booth, David Nichols, Austin Nichols, and Richard Nichols were brought to court for illegally transporting and selling people.
The 1790 census for Newtown shows 71 slaves and 1 free Black family. The 1800 census shows 18 slaves and 4 free Black families. Twelve slaves were known to have been officially emancipated. The fate of 32 people is unknown. In 1820 there were 4 slaves in Newtown.
Connecticut didn’t legally abolish slavery until 1848 when the General Assembly passed “An Act to Prevent Slavery”.
Sources Used:
Berlin, Ira, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.
Cruson, Daniel, The slaves of central Fairfield County : the journey from slave to freeman in nineteenth-century Connecticut, History Press, 2007.
Greene, Lorenzo J., The Negro in Colonial New England: 1620-1776, Columbia University Press, 1942.
Hardesty, Jared Ross, Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England, University of Massachusetts Press, 2019.
Roth, David Morris, Connecticut: A History, W. W. Norton & Company, 1979.
Berlin, Ira, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.
Cruson, Daniel, The slaves of central Fairfield County : the journey from slave to freeman in nineteenth-century Connecticut, History Press, 2007.
Greene, Lorenzo J., The Negro in Colonial New England: 1620-1776, Columbia University Press, 1942.
Hardesty, Jared Ross, Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England, University of Massachusetts Press, 2019.
Roth, David Morris, Connecticut: A History, W. W. Norton & Company, 1979.