Book Description

An essential chapter in the history of Massachusetts's Province of Maine has long been hidden in plain sight: the presence and role of numerous enslaved Blacks (i.e., Africans and people of mixed African, Native American, and white heritage) in its Parish of Kittery--an area that included what are now the towns of Eliot and Berwick. Bringing that missing story to light is the intent of this book. Local historian Patricia Wall has attempted here to push aside that barrier word 'slave' to try to see the men, women, and children to whom that inhuman label applied; to discover their personal circumstances and actions in order to reveal their impact on the early development of this region.In the course of several years of meticulous research into primary sources of all types--deeds, probate records, court files, church records, newspapers, manuscripts, and so on--Wall has skillfully uncovered the identify of more than 450 enslaved individuals who lived in the areas under investigation from the seventeenth century to 1820. In a series of contextual chapters, Wall discusses these people in a remarkable degree of detail and places them into the context of their life and times. Several appendices list both the enslaved persons and their owners and other detailed data.Lives of Consequence makes an important contribution to a more rounded understanding of life in the colonial and federal periods in early Maine. As such, it will be of interest to many academic historians and students, to professional and amateur genealogists, to museum curators, and to everyone concerned with recapturing this long overlooked aspect of the region¿s history. It is an important contribution to the growing literature that is "filling the gaps" in our previously often-biased interpretation of the New England past, and dovetails nicely with the mission of the Portsmouth Historical Society.