Celebrating Emancipation
By Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, June 19, 2020.
In a better world, we wouldn’t have to celebrate emancipation. In a better world, we wouldn’t be embroiled in a long overdue reckoning about race. But this is the United States of America in 2020, and so we need to do both of these things. Viewing the world through New England eyes, it can be all too easy to pretend the sins of slavery didn’t happen here, or that yes, there was slavery, but it wasn’t ‘as bad’ as it was in the South. Slavery is slavery, folks. It was a system that allowed – encased in law – people to own other people. It allowed people to steal the lives, bodies, labors and offspring of other people by force. Enslaved people in New Hampshire felt this burden in the same way as enslaved people in Virginia.
“About the year 1819 or 20,” an unnamed but clearly white letter-writer remembered in the December 5th, 1879 edition of the Exeter News-Letter, “the colored people of Exeter celebrated the abolition of slavery in New Hampshire by a procession.” Sadly, a lot of the information we have about Exeter’s Black population is mostly through the lens of nostalgic white people. Influenced by stereotypes they saw in minstrel shows, the descriptions we have are often –less than reliable. The account continues as the procession, “marched through the principal streets, with drum and fife, and then partook of a sumptuous dinner, provided for them by David Wedgewood, who kept a tavern at the corner of Hampton and Kensington roads, where L.B. Smith now resides. The only white man in the company was Major Charles Parks, who was drummer for the occasion. The event furnished a theme for some doggerel verses, printed soon after, the following being all that I now remember:
Yesterday was training day.
Major Parks was drummer,
George Hall was corporal,
and Ben Jake was commander.”
1819 or even 1820 would have been an odd time to celebrate emancipation in New Hampshire. The writer doesn’t tell us what time of year the parade took place although that might not have provided us with much more of a clue about what prompted the event. You see, there’s no real solid date for emancipation in New Hampshire. Slavery became less common after the Revolution and by 1840, the census record lists only one remaining enslaved person. The reason for this was that New Hampshire never legally abolished the practice, but there were some laws that seemed to eliminate slavery.
The first recorded enslaved person in New Hampshire, according to historian Valerie Cunningham, arrived in 1654. At the outbreak of the Revolution, there were 674 enslaved people living in New Hampshire. The Declaration of Independence didn’t free enslaved people. A petition, submitted in 1779 by 20 enslaved men of Portsmouth, requested that the state outlaw the practice of slavery. The petitioners got their wish when Governor Maggie Hassan signed it into law on June 8, 2013. The New Hampshire Constitution, drafted in 1783, stated “all men are born equal and independent,” but didn’t free enslaved people. The United States Constitution, which cloyingly refers to slaves as “all other persons” counted them as three-fifths of a person for representation and taxation purposes.
The closest we can come to the abolition of slavery in New Hampshire was the passage, in June of 1857, of the Act of Citizenship, which allowed, “no person, because of decent, should be disqualified from becoming a citizen of the state.” This didn’t directly outlaw slavery either and it was never tested in court. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1st, 1863, freeing only those enslaved in the states of the rebellion, so not New Hampshire. At that time, there were no enslaved people living in the state. Slavery was finally abolished legally in the state with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.
Another account of a parade, also written by an unknown white person, only adds to the mystery. “At the time of the emancipation of the slaves in N.H. there was a considerable population of such in Exeter, sufficient to make from the males a respectable sized military company. They formed themselves into a military company and chose Zachariah Robinson, a former slave of Capt. Ephraim Robinson as commander. They kept up the organization for several years parading annually on the day of their emancipation. They dressed in second-hand uniforms borrowed of those who had no further use for them. They usually paraded at the residence of the commander on Water Street and with martial music first marched to pay their respects to Capt. Ephraim Robinson at his residence where they were always treated to some cake and wine. Capt. Zack had never received a military education and on their first appearance could not form them into sections and so marched into town in single file. Soon after the appearance of the company in the center of the town a few kind friends assisted him to form four sections, much to the delight of the company.” This condescending description of a clownish inept attempt at military discipline says a great deal about white interpretations of something that was most likely quite serious to the participants. If this took place around 1820, the free Black population was still living with the specter of enslavement. We know of at least three Exeter men – all free born – who were kidnapped and enslaved during this time period. Joseph Whitefield, living at the far end of today’s Elliot Street, was a fugitive living with the possibility that he could be returned to his enslavers at any time. The demonstration on that day was not really a celebration of emancipation. It was more a public declaration of independence. No matter how they were viewed by their white neighbors, this was a statement that WE ARE FREE MEN. True emancipation from potential enslavement came later, and is still a work in progress.
Last year, 2019, New Hampshire became one of 47 states to celebrate emancipation as Juneteenth. Online streaming events can be found at the New Hampshire Black Heritage Trail webpage: http://blackheritagetrailnh.org.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, June 19, 2020.
In a better world, we wouldn’t have to celebrate emancipation. In a better world, we wouldn’t be embroiled in a long overdue reckoning about race. But this is the United States of America in 2020, and so we need to do both of these things. Viewing the world through New England eyes, it can be all too easy to pretend the sins of slavery didn’t happen here, or that yes, there was slavery, but it wasn’t ‘as bad’ as it was in the South. Slavery is slavery, folks. It was a system that allowed – encased in law – people to own other people. It allowed people to steal the lives, bodies, labors and offspring of other people by force. Enslaved people in New Hampshire felt this burden in the same way as enslaved people in Virginia.
“About the year 1819 or 20,” an unnamed but clearly white letter-writer remembered in the December 5th, 1879 edition of the Exeter News-Letter, “the colored people of Exeter celebrated the abolition of slavery in New Hampshire by a procession.” Sadly, a lot of the information we have about Exeter’s Black population is mostly through the lens of nostalgic white people. Influenced by stereotypes they saw in minstrel shows, the descriptions we have are often –less than reliable. The account continues as the procession, “marched through the principal streets, with drum and fife, and then partook of a sumptuous dinner, provided for them by David Wedgewood, who kept a tavern at the corner of Hampton and Kensington roads, where L.B. Smith now resides. The only white man in the company was Major Charles Parks, who was drummer for the occasion. The event furnished a theme for some doggerel verses, printed soon after, the following being all that I now remember:
Yesterday was training day.
Major Parks was drummer,
George Hall was corporal,
and Ben Jake was commander.”
1819 or even 1820 would have been an odd time to celebrate emancipation in New Hampshire. The writer doesn’t tell us what time of year the parade took place although that might not have provided us with much more of a clue about what prompted the event. You see, there’s no real solid date for emancipation in New Hampshire. Slavery became less common after the Revolution and by 1840, the census record lists only one remaining enslaved person. The reason for this was that New Hampshire never legally abolished the practice, but there were some laws that seemed to eliminate slavery.
The first recorded enslaved person in New Hampshire, according to historian Valerie Cunningham, arrived in 1654. At the outbreak of the Revolution, there were 674 enslaved people living in New Hampshire. The Declaration of Independence didn’t free enslaved people. A petition, submitted in 1779 by 20 enslaved men of Portsmouth, requested that the state outlaw the practice of slavery. The petitioners got their wish when Governor Maggie Hassan signed it into law on June 8, 2013. The New Hampshire Constitution, drafted in 1783, stated “all men are born equal and independent,” but didn’t free enslaved people. The United States Constitution, which cloyingly refers to slaves as “all other persons” counted them as three-fifths of a person for representation and taxation purposes.
The closest we can come to the abolition of slavery in New Hampshire was the passage, in June of 1857, of the Act of Citizenship, which allowed, “no person, because of decent, should be disqualified from becoming a citizen of the state.” This didn’t directly outlaw slavery either and it was never tested in court. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1st, 1863, freeing only those enslaved in the states of the rebellion, so not New Hampshire. At that time, there were no enslaved people living in the state. Slavery was finally abolished legally in the state with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.
Another account of a parade, also written by an unknown white person, only adds to the mystery. “At the time of the emancipation of the slaves in N.H. there was a considerable population of such in Exeter, sufficient to make from the males a respectable sized military company. They formed themselves into a military company and chose Zachariah Robinson, a former slave of Capt. Ephraim Robinson as commander. They kept up the organization for several years parading annually on the day of their emancipation. They dressed in second-hand uniforms borrowed of those who had no further use for them. They usually paraded at the residence of the commander on Water Street and with martial music first marched to pay their respects to Capt. Ephraim Robinson at his residence where they were always treated to some cake and wine. Capt. Zack had never received a military education and on their first appearance could not form them into sections and so marched into town in single file. Soon after the appearance of the company in the center of the town a few kind friends assisted him to form four sections, much to the delight of the company.” This condescending description of a clownish inept attempt at military discipline says a great deal about white interpretations of something that was most likely quite serious to the participants. If this took place around 1820, the free Black population was still living with the specter of enslavement. We know of at least three Exeter men – all free born – who were kidnapped and enslaved during this time period. Joseph Whitefield, living at the far end of today’s Elliot Street, was a fugitive living with the possibility that he could be returned to his enslavers at any time. The demonstration on that day was not really a celebration of emancipation. It was more a public declaration of independence. No matter how they were viewed by their white neighbors, this was a statement that WE ARE FREE MEN. True emancipation from potential enslavement came later, and is still a work in progress.
Last year, 2019, New Hampshire became one of 47 states to celebrate emancipation as Juneteenth. Online streaming events can be found at the New Hampshire Black Heritage Trail webpage: http://blackheritagetrailnh.org.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
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