Slavery in Rye
We know that the first West Africans were brought to Strawbery Banke (Portsmouth) against their will in 1645. The northern part of Sandy Beach (Rye) was part of the Banke, so it is possible that there were slave holders in Rye in the mid 1600s. While it is true that being a slave in the north was less cruel than life on a plantation in the south, the grim reality of slavery touched Rye at an early date. The first census of Rye in 1773 records 12 male and 7 female slaves. In 1775, another census showed "Negroes and Sleaves for life -- 14” [Parsons, page 54]. In the Revolutionary War, two newly freed blacks, Nimshi and Prince, died alongside their former masters. In 1790, another census listed three slaves and "eight other free persons." After the war, many slaves in the north were set free either by petition for their freedom or by their owners. Slavery was not officially abolished in New Hampshire until 1857. In the History of the Town of Rye [page 212], Parsons has a one-page narrative entitled "Negro Slaves," which lists slave owners and various transactions that occurred regarding them.
Source: Parsons, Langdon B. History of the Town of Rye, New Hampshire: From Its Discovery and Settlement to December 31, 1903. Rumford Printing Company, Concord, NH. 1905.
March 2022
African Americans in Rye
The first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia in 1619 and soon slavery had become an established institution in the south. Africans first appeared in Portsmouth in 1641 and became servants for life, unable to work off their servitude as was the case with indentured whites. Northern ships, including some from Portsmouth, which Rye men may have helped to build and could have served on, participated in the lucrative trans-Atlantic slave trade.
We do not know when the first enslaved person was brought to Rye, but by the 1700s some families owned enslaved people. The Seavey’s had Hampshire, who ran away, as well as Titus, Hannah, Bow, and Jenny. The Odiorne’s had Jack, the Wallis family had Phyllis and Caesar, the Berry’s had Peter Long and Old Black Peter. The Garlands had Black Prince, the Jenness family had Nimshi and Prince and the Libbey and Parsons family also owned people, and there may well have been others, not recorded. (See Color Me Included: The African Americans of Hampton’s First Church and its Descendant Parishes, 1670-1826 by Deborah Knowlton for more details on Rye slave owners). It was not uncommon for enslaved people to escape their owners, but it was a perilous flight into the unknown.
According to the History of Rye NH, by Langdon Parsons,1905, there were 19 enslaved people owned by Rye residents in 1773, twelve male and seven female. Because census records were unreliable at that time, the number could have been higher. Two enslaved people, Nimshi and Prince, were freed on the eve of the Revolution by their owner Job Jenness and fought and died in that conflict.
Quakers were one of the first groups to speak out against slavery. By the 1800s some Rye residents may have joined the growing abolitionist movement. Others were all too accustomed to accepting slavery as the norm, as revealed in this passage from John L. Parsons’ History of the Churches of Rye, NH:
According to the record, on March 11, 1838, the first real abolition sermon was preached in the Rye Congregational church by Minister Root of Dover. When Thomas J. Parsons walked into the entry of the church, he heard someone say at the other door: “Insurrection and destruction of the Country.” Looking around he saw Gen. Thomas Goss, Gen. Ira Brown, Richard R. Locke, Samuel Jenness, Jr., Reuel Garland, Charles Green and John A. Trefethen leaving the meeting house. Many more refused to attend the service that afternoon.
New Hampshire did not officially ban slavery until 1857, and by that time Rye and most other northern communities had ended this practice of human bondage. In 1865 Reconstruction began, but the controversial election of 1876 ended that effort, leaving Blacks at the mercy of discriminatory “Jim Crow" laws.
Despite all obstacles, Black Americans worked their way into everyday life. In the early 20th century, Rye photographer ARH Foss captured images of Afro-Americans in Rye as tourists, performing musicians for hotel guests and employees of those hotels. In the Cold War era, after the U.S. armed forces had integrated, a few Afro-American airmen serving at Pease Air Force Base realized the New Hampshire seacoast was an ideal place to call home.
Aldrich Mitchell of Rye was elected to the Select Board in 1979 and may have been the only black family in Rye at that time. Phyllis Wallis, one of the last surviving former slaves in Rye, died in 1821. Over two centuries later, the legacy of slavery remains our country’s unfinished business, awaiting further healing and reconciliation.
