The full content of this document is only available to subscribing institutions. More information can be found via www.amdigital.co.uk
If you believe you should have access to this document, click here to Login.
| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Collection Reference Number | GLC00318 |
| From Archive Folder | Documents Relating to 1781 |
| Title | Certifies Cuffee Wells's purchase of freedom |
| Date | 30 April 1781 |
| Author | Huntington, Benjamin (1736-1800) |
| Additional authors | Lamb, Richard (fl. 1781) Nutter, John (fl. 1781) |
| Document Type | Legal document |
| Content Description | John Nutter and Richard Lamb sign, attesting that in May 1777 they "Belonged to a Class in the town of Norwich to Procure a soldier for the Continental Army, of which Mr. Elihu Hyde was head, and that Said Class hired Cuffee Wells, a Free Negro, to Enlist Into the Continental Service During the War, and Gave him Besides the Publick Bounty Thirty Pounds for Inlisting..." Part of the sum was paid to Wells' old master "for his Time." Signed by Huntington as Justice of the Peace, who confirms that Wells' former commander, Captain Jedediah Hyde of Norwich, "always understood that the money that was given to Wells at his Enlistment Purchased his Freedom." |
| Subjects | Military History African American History African American Troops Revolutionary War Continental Army Emancipation Freemen Slavery Recruitment Law Government and Civics |
| People | Huntington, Benjamin (1736-1800) Lamb, Richard (fl. 1781) Nutter, John (fl. 1781) Hyde, Jedediah (1738-1822) Wells, Cuffee (fl. 1781) |
| Place written | Norwich, Connecticut |
| Theme | Slavery & Abolition; African Americans; Law; The American Revolution |
| Sub-collection | The Gilder Lehrman Collection, 1493-1859 |
| Additional Information | "In Connecticut, which held 5,100 in slavery in the mid-1770s, the conversation about emancipation began early. In 1774, two years before the War of Independence, Connecticut's General Assembly decreed that no more slaves could be brought into the colony. Legislation enacted a few years later further streamlined the manumission process and gave town boards the right to evaluate and rule on freedom requests... Although racial prejudice remained entrenched, enslaved people made their own powerful argument for freedom. More than once, black men petitioned the legislature for their emancipation, and the war itself, in which both the English and the colonials offered freedom to enslaved black men who would fight, served to usher thousands into free lives" (Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, http://cmi2.yale.edu/). Benjamin Huntington was a Continental Congressman (1780, 1782, 1783, 1788), Connecticut state senator (1781-1790 and 1791-1793), Mayor of Norwich (1784-1796) and a member of the First Congress (1789-1791). |
| Copyright | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |
| Module | Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859 |