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Explores how Black New Englanders maintained a sense of belonging among their kin in the face of slavery
As winter turned to spring in the year 1699, Sebastian and Jane embarked on a campaign of persuasion. The two wished to marry, and they sought the backing of their community in Boston. Nothing, however, could induce Jane’s enslaver to consent. Only after her death did Sebastian and Jane manage to wed, forming a long-lasting union even though husband and wife were not always able to live in the same household.
New England is often considered a cradle of liberty in American history, but this snippet of Jane and Sebastian’s story reminds us that it was also a cradle of slavery. From the earliest years of colonization, New Englanders bought and sold people, most of whom were of African descent. In Belonging, Gloria McCahon Whiting tells the region’s early history from the perspective of the people, like Jane and Sebastian, who belonged to others and who struggled to maintain a sense of belonging among their kin. Through a series of meticulously reconstructed family narratives, Whiting traces the contours of enslaved people’s intimate lives in early New England, where they often lived with those who bound them but apart from kin. Enslaved spouses rarely were able to cohabit; fathers and their offspring routinely were separated by inheritance practices; children could be removed from their mothers at an enslaver’s whim; and people in bondage had only partial control of their movement through the region, which made more difficult the task of maintaining distant relationships.
But Belonging does more than lay bare the obstacles to family stability for those in bondage. Whiting also charts Afro-New Englanders’ persistent demands for intimacy throughout the century and a half stretching from New England’s founding to the American Revolution. And she shows how the work of making and maintaining relationships influenced the region’s law, religion, society, and politics. Ultimately, the actions taken by people in bondage to fortify their families played a pivotal role in bringing about the collapse of slavery in New England’s most populous state, Massachusetts.
"With Belonging, Gloria McCahon Whiting has made a crucial and deeply impactful contribution to our understanding of kinship, reproduction, and race in the early history of North America. By centering the lives of those enslaved in Massachusetts, she pushes on the boundaries of what we think we know, showing with clarity and certainty that Black people lived, labored, and loved in New England despite the violences and griefs they endured at the hands of enslavers. Belonging is required reading for those interested in slavery, the Black Atlantic world, the family, and gender and reproduction."
"Built on stunning biographical portraits, Belonging is social history at its best, exploring issues of family formation, personal and community resistance, and the struggle for freedom in eastern Massachusetts in the 150 years leading up to the Revolution. Gloria McCahon Whiting reaches deep into the lives of the enslaved, covering startlingly new ground while at the same time providing us with sophisticated methods to access the records they left of their efforts to build and protect their families. It is a remarkable achievement that will force us to reconsider the ways we have looked at slavery and abolition."
"Interweaving deep data-mining with vivid story-telling, Gloria McCahon Whiting brilliantly limns the intimate lives, sorrows, and activism of Afro-New Englanders who belonged to one another but also to enslavers. An innovative and very important book."
"(Re)constructing narratives from archival fragments by reimagining the silences of the archive, Whiting creates a powerful portrait of Black life that expands our understanding of chattel slavery in New England."
— Srividhya Swaminathan