New Hampshire: African Americans

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New Hampshire had a small but significant free Black population. No court case or act of the legislature formally abolished slavery in the state, but surrounded on most sides by Massachusetts, where slavery effectively ended during the early 1780s, New Hampshire became free soil in practice. Wentworth Cheswill of Newmarket, already free at the time of the Revolution, served as that town's clerk and was cited by historian Jeremy Belknap as an example of Black achievement in the region. Ona Judge, enslaved by George and Martha Washington, fled the President's House in Philadelphia near the end of Washington's second term and settled in Greenland, New Hampshire, where local magistrates protected her despite Washington's repeated attempts to reclaim her. She lived the rest of her life free, though in poverty—a reminder that freedom, once gained, did not guarantee comfort or equality.

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Eliga Gould
- Professor of History, University of New Hampshire

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