The Massasoit Guards were an African-American militia company active in 1850s Boston. Clothing retailer John P. Coburn founded the group to police Beacon Hill and protect residents from slave catchers. Attorney Robert Morris repeatedly petitioned the Massachusetts legislature on their behalf, but the Massasoit Guards were never officially recognized or supported by the state. The group was a precursor to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. [1]
After Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Boston and other Northern cities were no longer safe havens for refugees from slavery. Black communities began forming independent militias to protect residents from slave catchers: the Attucks Guards in New York City, the Hannibal Guards in Pittsburgh, the Detroit Military Guards, and many others. In Boston, the first black militia was called the Massasoit Guards. [2]
The group was founded in 1854 by John Coburn, a Beacon Hill clothing retailer and co-owner of a profitable gaming house. Coburn was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee and treasurer of the New England Freedom Association, both organizations dedicated to helping fugitive slaves. Coburn also personally served as captain of the Massasoit Guards. [2] The unit was named for Massasoit, a 17th-century Wampanoag leader. Abolitionist William Cooper Nell remarked on the choice of name in 1855:
Perhaps, as the name of Attucks has already been appropriated by colored military companies in New York and Cincinnati, they accepted Massasoit as their patron saint. He was one of those Indian chiefs, who, in early colonial times, proved himself signally friendly to the interests of the Old Bay State. [3]
That same year, the editor of the Boston Evening Telegraph questioned the wisdom of creating an all-black company:
And we are somewhat at a loss to see why our colored friends, who so reasonably objected to being set apart as a class in the schools, should now voluntarily set themselves apart as a class in the military. [4]
The group may have come together informally before 1854. According to historian Mary Ellen Snodgrass, several members of the Massasoit Guards were involved in the rescue of Shadrach Minkins in 1851. Minkins had escaped slavery in Virginia and was working in Boston when he was arrested by federal marshals and imprisoned in the court house. A group of about 20 black activists led by Lewis Hayden stormed the court house and rescued Minkins by force. John Coburn was among those arrested in connection with the rescue, but was acquitted of all charges. [5]
During the mid-1850s, attorney Robert Morris repeatedly petitioned to include the Massasoit Guards in the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, and to have the word "white" stricken from the state's militia law. At the time, federal militia law as well as Massachusetts state law stipulated that only white men could serve. Many whites were threatened by the thought of black men being provided with weapons and military training. [6] Denied the use of state weapons, the Guards purchased their own gear and continued to operate outside the law for several years. [2]
Morris and other advocates emphasized that blacks were native-born American citizens, unlike the immigrants who, at that time, were arriving in large numbers at the Port of Boston. Morris once remarked before the legislature's militia committee, "Some of the petitioners whom I have the honor to represent, can trace back their ancestry to a time long before an Englishman or any white foreigner stood upon American ground." William J. Watkins was more explicit: "All we ask is that you treat us as well as you do the Irish, German, Hungarian." Despite the appeal to nativism, which was on the rise in Massachusetts, their petitions were denied. [7] Eventually the Massasoit Guards gave up in frustration and disbanded. [6]
Lewis Hayden escaped slavery in Kentucky with his family and reached Canada. He established a school for African Americans before moving to Boston, Massachusetts. There he became an abolitionist, lecturer, businessman, and politician. Before the American Civil War, he and his wife Harriet Hayden aided numerous fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad, often sheltering them at their house.
Shadrach Minkins was an African-American fugitive slave from Virginia who escaped in 1850 and reached Boston. He also used the pseudonyms Frederick Wilkins and Frederick Jenkins. He is known for being freed from a courtroom in Boston after being captured by United States marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Members of the Boston Vigilance Committee freed and hid him, helping him get to Canada via the Underground Railroad. Minkins settled in Montreal, where he raised a family. Two men were prosecuted in Boston for helping free him, but they were acquitted by the jury.
The Boston Vigilance Committee (1841–1861) was an abolitionist organization formed in Boston, Massachusetts, to protect escaped slaves from being kidnapped and returned to slavery in the South. The Committee aided hundreds of escapees, most of whom arrived as stowaways on coastal trading vessels and stayed a short time before moving on to Canada or England. Notably, members of the Committee provided legal and other aid to George Latimer, Ellen and William Craft, Shadrach Minkins, Thomas Sims, and Anthony Burns.
Thomas Dalton (1794–1883) was a free African American raised in Massachusetts who was dedicated to improving the lives of people of color. He was active with his wife Lucy Lew Dalton, Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the founding or ongoing activities of local educational organizations, including the Massachusetts General Colored Association, New England Anti-Slavery Society, Boston Mutual Lyceum, and Infant School Association, and campaigned for school integration, which was achieved in 1855.
In the American Revolution, gaining freedom was the strongest motive for Black enslaved people who joined the Patriot or British armies. It is estimated that 20,000 African Americans joined the British cause, which promised freedom to enslaved people, as Black Loyalists. Around 9,000 African Americans became Black Patriots.
The Bucks of America was a Patriot Massachusetts Militia company, during the American Revolutionary War, that was composed of African-American soldiers. Few records survive about the unit; most of its history is constructed from eyewitness accounts. No official military records pertaining to the Bucks of America exist or have survived.
William Cooper Nell was an American abolitionist, journalist, publisher, author, and civil servant of Boston, Massachusetts, who worked for the integration of schools and public facilities in the state. Writing for abolitionist newspapers The Liberator and The North Star, he helped publicize the anti-slavery cause. He published the North Star from 1847 to 18xx, moving temporarily to Rochester, New York.
Black Patriots were African Americans who sided with the colonists who opposed British rule during the American Revolution. The term Black Patriots includes, but is not limited to, the 5,000 or more African Americans who served in the Continental Army and Patriot militias during the American Revolutionary War.
The William C. Nell House, now a private residence, was a boarding home located in 3 Smith Court in the Beacon Hill neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts, opposite the former African Meeting House, now the Museum of African American History.
Robert Morris was one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States, and was called "the first really successful colored lawyer in America."
Leonard Andrew Grimes was an African-American abolitionist and pastor. He served as a conductor of the Underground Railroad, including his efforts to free fugitive slave Anthony Burns captured in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. After the Civil War began, Grimes petitioned for African-American enlistment. He then recruited soldiers for the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.
Edward Garrison Walker (1830–1901), also Edwin Garrison Walker, was an American artisan in Boston who became an attorney; in 1861, he became one of the first black men to pass the Massachusetts bar. In 1866 he and Charles Lewis Mitchell were the first two African Americans elected to the Massachusetts state legislature. Walker was the son of Eliza and David Walker, the militant abolitionist and author of An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829).
John James Smith was a barber shop owner, abolitionist, a three-term Massachusetts state representative, and one of the first African-American members of the Boston Common Council. A Republican, he served three terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He was born in Richmond Virginia. He took part in the California Gold Rush.
John Telemachus Hilton was an African-American abolitionist, author, and businessman, who established barber, furniture dealer, and employment agency businesses. He was a Prince Hall Mason and established the Prince Hall National Grand Lodge of North America and served as its first National Grand Master for ten years. He also was a founding member of the Massachusetts General Colored Association, and active member and author in the Anti-Slavery movement.
The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, With Sketches of Several Distinguished Colored Persons: To Which is Added a Brief Survey of the Conditions and Prospects of Colored Americans, or, in brief, The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, is an American history book written by William Cooper Nell, with an introduction by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was published in 1855 by Robert F. Wallcut. It focuses on African-American soldiers during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. It details "the services of the Colored Patriots of the revolution".
The Abolition Riot of 1836 took place in Boston, Massachusetts in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. In August 1836, Eliza Small and Polly Ann Bates, two enslaved women from Baltimore who had run away, were arrested in Boston and brought before Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw. The judge ordered them freed because of a problem with the arrest warrant. When the agent for their enslaver requested a new warrant, the spectators—mostly African-American women—rioted in the courtroom and rescued Small and Bates.
Samuel Edmund Sewall (1799–1888) was an American lawyer, abolitionist, and suffragist. He co-founded the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, lent his legal expertise to the Underground Railroad, and served a term in the Massachusetts Senate as a Free-Soiler.
The New England Freedom Association was an organization founded by African Americans in Boston for the purpose of assisting fugitive slaves.
Ellis Gray Loring was an American attorney, abolitionist, and philanthropist from Boston. He co-founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, provided legal advice to abolitionists, harbored fugitive slaves in his home, and helped finance the abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. Loring also mentored Robert Morris, who went on to become one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States.
John P. Coburn (1811–1873) was a 19th-century African-American abolitionist, civil rights activist, tailor and clothier from Boston, Massachusetts. For most of his life, he resided at 2 Phillips Street in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood. Coburn was one of the wealthiest African Americans in Boston of his time. His property on the North Slope of Beacon Hill had the third highest real property value in an 1850 census. Coburn was heavily involved in abolition-related work within his community, specifically work related to the New England Freedom Association and the Massasoit Guards.
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