The Civic Engagement of the Antebellum African-Americans of Boston’s Beacon Hill and West End, 1848-1855
The time of the Fugitive Slave Law in Boston saw a tremendous outpouring of bravery by ordinary citizens. This student-developed project focused on the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Boston’s Beacon Hill and West End to connect a variety of biographical sources and in many ways bring these individuals to life.
In order to determine the rate of civic engagement of this cohort during the time period we first created a database of African-Americans living in Boston’s Beacon Hill/West End Neighborhood from 1848 to 1855. To find this information we used Boston City Directories, the Federal Census and Boston City Tax Records, including poll taxes.
We then linked the names and biographical information with over 500 articles that we digitized from William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper The Liberator.
In addition to the obvious abolition news of the week, each issue contained a number of articles that pertained to the lives, cultural and civic participation of these same African-Americans. The Liberator focused on various voluntary associations at the time, both white, black, and integrated. We were then able to identify leaders and active members of these associations amongst the neighborhood residents in our database. In this way, we were able to identify and shine a light on these forgotten heroes, who had heretofore been lost in time.
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Project Research & Design
The African-Americans in Antebellum Boston project began in April 2003. Thirteen students from Beverly High School signed up for a volunteer non-credit research class called PATH (Project: Apprentice to History). Read more:
- Introduction
- Research at the Boston Athenaeum
- Professor Robert Allison
- Boston African-American Heritage Trail
- Wednesday Meetings at the Beverly Library
- Developing a Searchable Database
- Tax Assessment Records from the Boston City Archives
- Digitizing The Liberator
- The 1852 Slatter & Callan Map of Boston
- Geographic Information System (GIS) Map of Beacon Hill in 1850
- Probate Records
- Digitized Documents
- Student Research
- Related Websites
My 4th great grand father Thomas Haszard/Hazard states in his pension record that he was born in Boston Mass on January 18, 1765. Would there be records that go back that far and if so where would I located them. He states his father had a record of his birth but the family home burned with the bible. He could read and write and is said to be of mixed Native American and African American descent. In BIA census he is listed as Native American in 1790 and 1800 in other Massachusetts towns. He married a full blooded Penobscot Indian by the name of Elizabeth “Betsey/Betty” Boston in Littleton Mass 1786.