Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
Prince Harden complains that you deny to give him a manumission & that you still claim him as a Slave & threaten to make those pay who employ him; he either is your slave or he is a Freeman. If he is yr. Slave he ought to know it & obey you as his Master & you have the profit of him, if he is a Freeman as he claims to be it ought to be known & he quieted in the enjoyment of it free from any apprehensions of disturbance from any person claiming to be his master; therefore unless you give him a proper manumission in the course of a week an action will be commenced to next Court that so if he be yr. slave yo. may have an opportunity to prove it.1
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).
PassedSeptember 28, 1779 .
Resolved, That the Attorney General be and he hereby is directed as soon as possible to bring forward the Actions against the Estates of the several Absentees, agreeable to an Act of this State passed the present Year.
The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1779–1780 (Boston, 1922), 162.
Mr. Steavenson with the horse & Chaise Set out for Boston this after noon. I Should be Glad of ¼ lb of Spice cinnamon cloves mace nutmages & Some Good Sugar to Save Loaf that Brother got is not nice. I have not been able to get any flower I have Sent to all the places & Could get none if you can get me a few lbs. of nice flower for pyes I can make it due for court1 their will be a Load of flower in town within a month. By your Letter2 I recv’d yesterday I find Nabby3 is married my Love to her & wish her Joy for me & tell her I Long to have been their. Know of Mrs. Greenleaf when one of her daughters can come. Dont forget my Rose water I have not any to use & Sweet herbs.
RTP returned home on Oct. 2 “in my chaise with Mr. Stevenson.” He left for a session of the Superiour Court of Judicature in Worcester (Oct. 5–9) but returned to Taunton for the Superiour Court’s Bristol County session (Oct. 12–15) (RTP Diary).
Not located.
Abigail Greenleaf (1753–1788) married at Boston, July 29, 1779, the Rev. Ezra Weld (1736–1816), as his third wife. Reverend Weld, a 1759 graduate of Yale College, was ordained as the minister of Braintree, Mass., in 1764 and remained there until his death (Charles Frederick Robinson, Weld Collections [Ann Arbor, Mich., 1938], 95).