Dft. ; addressed: “Rob. Luscombe Esq.”

This is presumably the Prince Harden who served for one month in a regiment of guards at Winter Hill in 1778 and claimed manumission on the basis of this military service. The outcome of this case is not known, and it appears that it did not come to court. The 1790 census of Taunton listed Robert Luscombe as the head of a household which included two free white males over sixteen; one free white male under sixteen; five free white females; and one other free person, presumably a black person. Also listed was a separate household headed by Prince Luscombe, which consisted of three other free people (Heads of Households in the 1790 United States Census: Massachusetts, 56).

John D. Cushing mistakenly ascribed this as a letter from RTP to William Cushing. Removing this piece from the evidence makes the case against William Cushing as a weak abolitionist much less convincing. See John D. Cushing, “The Cushing Court and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts: More Notes on the Quock Walker Case,” American Journal of Legal History 5(1961):118–144, esp. p. 140. For William Cushing’s determination that black people be treated on the same legal standing as others, see William Cushing to John Hancock, Boston, Dec. 20, 1783 (William Cushing Papers, MHS).

The series of cases which putatively eliminated slavery in Massachusetts under the new state constitution revolved around a former slave named Quock Walker. Walker had escaped from servitude in central Massachusetts and was working as hired labor when his former master discovered him and beat him in order to force Walker’s return. Suits were brought in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas by both parties—by Nathaniel Jennison for return of his property, and by Quock Walker against Jennison for assault. Jennison lost both cases, and Walker v. Jennison ruled that Quock Walker was indeed a freeman although there is no record that the state constitution was specifically invoked. Both decisions were appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court; although Jennison defaulted on the property case, the assault charge did reach the court, where Paine acted for the Commonwealth and the decision was upheld. The first acknowledgment of the role of the constitution in the matter came in Jennison’s own words when he filed a remonstrance with the General Court that “he was deprived of ten Negro Servants by a Judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court on the following clause of the Constitution, ‘That all men are born free and equal’ and praying that if said judgment is approved of, he may be freed from his obligations to support said negroes” (House Journals [SC1/series 532], v. 1782–1783:99. Massachusetts Archives, Boston, Mass., quoted in William O’Brien, “Did the Jennison Case Outlaw Slavery in Massachusetts?,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 17[1960]:233).

For details on these cases, see John D. Cushing, “Cushing Court”; O’Brien, “Did the Jennison Case Outlaw Slavery in Massachusetts?,” 219–241; and Elaine MacEacheren, “Emancipation of Slavery in Massachusetts: A Reexamination, 1770–1790,” Journal of Negro History 55(1970):289–306. Arthur Zilversmith offered an alternate interpretation in “Quok Walker, Mumbet, and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 25(1968):614–624. John D. Cushing strongly disagreed with the conclusions of the Zilversmith article (John D. Cushing to Elaine MacEacheren, Dec. 2, 1969. MHS Archives).