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Schenectady is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-most populous city and the twenty-fifth most-populous municipality. The city is in eastern New York, near the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers. It is in the same metropolitan area as the state capital, Albany, which is about 15 miles (24 km) southeast.
The Pioneer Valley is the colloquial and promotional name for the portion of the Connecticut River Valley that is in Massachusetts in the United States. It is generally taken to comprise the three counties of Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin. The lower Pioneer Valley corresponds to the Springfield, Massachusetts metropolitan area, the region's urban center, and the seat of Hampden County. The upper Pioneer Valley region includes the smaller cities of Northampton and Greenfield, the county seats of Hampshire and Franklin counties, respectively.
Theodore Sedgwick was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served in elected state government and as a delegate to the Continental Congress, a U.S. representative, and a senator from Massachusetts. He served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate from June to December 1798. He also served as the fourth speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1802 and served there for the rest of his life.
Absalom Jones was an African-American abolitionist and clergyman who became prominent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Disappointed at the racial discrimination he experienced in a local Methodist church, he founded the Free African Society with Richard Allen in 1787, a mutual aid society for African Americans in the city. The Free African Society included many people newly freed from slavery after the American Revolutionary War.
Western Massachusetts, known colloquially as "western Mass," is a region in Massachusetts, one of the six U.S. states that make up the New England region of the United States. Western Massachusetts has diverse topography; 22 colleges and universities including UMass in Amherst, MA, with approximately 100,000 students; and such institutions as Tanglewood, the Springfield Armory, and Jacob's Pillow.
Elizabeth Freeman, also known Mumbet, was one of the first enslaved African Americans to file and win a freedom suit in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling, in Freeman's favor, found slavery to be inconsistent with the 1780 Constitution of Massachusetts. Her suit, Brom and Bett v. Ashley (1781), was cited in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court appellate review of Quock Walker's freedom suit. When the court upheld Walker's freedom under the state's constitution, the ruling was considered to have implicitly ended slavery in Massachusetts.
Any time, any time while I was a slave, if one minute's freedom had been offered to me, and I had been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it—just to stand one minute on God's airth [sic] a free woman—I would.
La Amistad was a 19th-century two-masted schooner owned by a Spaniard living in Cuba. It became renowned in July 1839 for a slave revolt by Mende captives who had been captured and sold to European slave traders and illegally transported by a Portuguese ship from West Africa to Cuba, in violation of European treaties against the Atlantic slave trade. Spanish plantation owners Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes bought 53 captives in Havana, Cuba, including four children, and were transporting them on the ship to their plantations near Puerto Príncipe. The revolt began after the schooner's cook jokingly told the slaves that they were to be "killed, salted, and cooked." Sengbe Pieh unshackled himself and the others on the third day and started the revolt. They took control of the ship, killing the captain and the cook. Three Africans were also killed in the melee.
Isaac Bissell was a patriot post rider who delivered mail between Boston and Hartford, Connecticut. On April 19, 1775, the British made an attack on Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. He was assigned to alert American colonists of the news and rally them to assist the Massachusetts minutemen. Traveling from Watertown, Massachusetts, on the Upper Post Road to Hartford, Connecticut, and through Connecticut Colony, he carried the Lexington Alarm message from Joseph Palmer. He rode again in July 1779 to deliver the New Haven Alarm. Bissell served the Connecticut Militia throughout the Revolutionary War.
William Shepard was a United States representative from Massachusetts (1797–1802), and a military officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. As a state militia leader he protected the Springfield Armory during Shays' Rebellion, firing cannon into the force of Daniel Shays and compelling them to disperse. He was also served in town and state government and was a member of the Massachusetts Governor's Council.
The Daily Hampshire Gazette is a six-day morning daily newspaper based in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States, and covering all of Hampshire County, southern towns of Franklin County, and Holyoke. The newspaper prints Monday through Saturday, with the latter labeled "Weekend Edition". As of 2024, it is the longest running daily newspaper in Massachusetts.
Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by slaves against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or territory.
Richard Falley Jr. was a soldier who fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Julia Ward Williams Garnet was an American abolitionist who was active in Massachusetts and New York.
William Grimes was an African American barber and writer who authored what is considered the first narrative of a formerly enslaved American, Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, published in 1825, with a second edition published in 1855. Another revised edition was published by one of his descendants in 2008. Grimes escaped slavery by boarding on a ship called Casket, which sailed from Savannah, Georgia to New York City. He then walked to Connecticut from New York City to begin his life as a free man. Grimes lived in Stratford, Norwalk, Fairfield, Bridgeport and Stratford Point alongside New Haven and Litchfield, Connecticut following his escape from slavery. New Haven was where Grimes eventually settled to live out his final days.
Jenny Slew was one of the first enslaved Black Americans to sue for her freedom, and the first person to succeed through trial by jury. Her lawyer was Benjamin Kent.
Talbert Wesley Swan II is an American religious leader. He is a prelate in the Church of God in Christ serving as the bishop of the Vermont Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the United States. Swan is the fifth leader of the Jurisdiction and oversees COGIC congregations in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York. Swan serves the Church of God in Christ as Assistant General Secretary and Director of Social Justice Ministry. Swan is also the National Chaplain of Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc. and the host of a radio talk show, The Spoken Word.
James Mars was an American slave narrative author and political activist. Born into slavery in Canaan, Connecticut, he gained his freedom in 1811. In 1864, he published his memoir A Life of James Mars, a Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut, Written by Himself—a notable example of the slave narrative genre. His grave is a stop on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. In 2021, Governor Ned Lamont declared May 1 to be James Mars Day in Connecticut.
Greensbury Washington Offley was an American slave narrative author and minister. Born into slavery in Maryland and eventually freed, Offley wrote A Narrative of the Life and Labors of the Rev. G. W. Offley, a Colored Man, Local Preacher and Missionary (1859), one of only six slave narratives published in Connecticut.
Bezaleel Howard was an American Congregationalist minister.
Ruth Cox Adams was an American abolitionist and former slave.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 McCarthy, Cliff (2018-01-30). "Williams, Jenny". Oxford African American Studies Center. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.73479. ISBN 978-0-19-530173-1 . Retrieved 2024-03-02.
- 1 2 "Bill of Sale for Jenny, 16 February 1808". Springfield Museums. Retrieved 2024-03-02.
- 1 2 3 4 Connecticut Valley Historical Society (1881). Papers and Proceedings of the Connecticut Valley Historical Society. 1876-19. The Society. pp. 213–214.
- ↑ Helms, Karl Conway (1974). Ethnohistorical research methodology for classroom use; development of a social portrait of Springfield, Massachusetts, 1850 to 1880 (Thesis). p. 72.