As with all of the original 13 colonies/states, the evils of slavery and segregation were part of Massachusetts history. Although slavery officially existed in Massachusetts until 1788 when a state law was enacted that banned slavery and the slave trade in the Commonwealth, institutional racial segregation was allowed to carry on until the middle of the nineteenth century.
In 1705 the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature enacted a law that “prohibited marriage and fornification” between negroes or mulattoes and whites. In 1786, the prohibition against fornification was eliminated but the ban against intermarriage was now expanded to include Indians. These state laws against inter-racial marriage were enforced until legislative repeal in the 1840’s.
Racial segregation was evident in railroad accommodations in the Commonwealth. On a number of railroad lines in Massachusetts, black citizens were placed either in a separate car by themselves or in railroad cars often neither “decent nor comfortable”. A Massachusetts law prohibiting the practice of racial segregation in mass transportation was finally enacted in 1842.
Public schools in the Massachusetts communities of Salem, Nantucket, and Boston were racially segregated into the 1840’s and 1850’s. All Massachusetts public schools finally became integrated in 1855 with the enactment of a law “prohibiting all distinctions of color and religion in Massachusetts public school admissions.”
Hello, I am doing some genealogical research. I tried to download the 1754 slave census database, but I did not succeed. Is this something you can send to me? I am particularly interested in knowing the names of the people who both owned the enslaved people and the names of the enslaved people — as much as that might be possible. I have seen some images from the census and it might only be the tally of people in each town without the names of people….
thank you, Kim Cook
(descendant of Roger and Sarah Conant, Robert and Christian Carver, and others).
Hi Kim,
Glad you found our site, and apologies that the link to the full census wasn’t available. I fixed the link and you should be able to view it by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page: https://primaryresearch.org/the-1754-slave-census/
Good luck with you research!
Kevin
Dear Mr. McGrath:
First, kudos on your scholarship and research on Massachusetts sordid history of racial segregation in Massachusetts.
Unfortunately, I remain dismayed by the seemingly deliberate omission of any reference to attorney Robert Morris’s role in being the FIRST lawyer too challennge racial segregation of the Boston Public Schools. When he lost the case he asked Charles Sumner to join him in appealing to the state Supreme Court to overturn the School Committee’s decision to deny 6 year old Sarah Roberts to attend the school “nearest” her residence . Both he and Sumner filed the appeal and became the first time in US history for a Black lawyer appeal to the SJC. Sumner argued the case but he has been the center piece, not he and Morris–only Sumner. Why? Morris brought Sumner into the case and history record their union as the first recorded black white and legal team in history. to file the , after losing the case. It’s my understanding that Morris played a major roll in initiating the passage of the 1855 statute “prohibiting all distinctions of color and religion in Massachusetts public school admissions.” thereby abrogating the Roberts decision which ironically, 46 years later, the SCOTUS still relied upon the Roberts a leading authority for the Separate but Equal school doctrine in Plessy. Could you kindly addresss my concerns?Thank you
Hi Chuck,
Thank you for your valuable contribution. Our page is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a starting point for research.