Continuing Our Work:
What this project is all about
“After Elizabeth Freeman: the Untold Story of the Black Community of Sheffield” is a project funded by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities 2022 “Expand Massachusetts Stories” grant. The project is a collaboration between the Sheffield Historical Society and Westfield State University. Its goal is to uncover the history of the Black community in Sheffield, Massachusetts between 1781 and 1915. The outcome will be a series of programs, exhibits, media and place markers that educates the public on the history of the community.
For a small New England town, Sheffield’s Black community had impacts on history that extended far beyond its borders. The first enslaved person to successfully sue for freedom in the state, Elizabeth Freeman, was from Sheffield and her case was the catalyst that led to the end of slavery in the state in 1783. The next significant milestone we know of was during the Civil War when 11 Black men enlisted in the Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment. Indeed, the first man to enlist in the regiment and serve, Milo Freeland, was a local farmer.
Our questions are: How did this Black community, largely segregated in an area called New Guinea, become established between 1790-1860? Who were the families? Were they once enslaved people or their descendants? Sheffield has borders with Connecticut and New York, states that did not fully abolish slavery until decades later. This resulted in a small, regional “underground railroad” of people escaping to Massachusetts. Is this a significant factor in the origin of Sheffield’s Black community? The town also was on transportation routes of New York City and Connecticut port towns, so it’s possible that they may have been free or enslaved elsewhere in North America. The project will also look at what freedom meant to those who were free Blacks in a time, and a place, namely Massachusetts, when every other Northern state had a system of gradual abolition or, as in the South, perpetual slavery through law.
We know through tax records that a good portion of Black families in the years leading up to the Civil War owned property and had established businesses or trades. So, why did these men, with property, vocations, families to support--men who were already free--lead the way in volunteering to fight to free those enslaved in the South? Does the achievement of Elizabeth Freeman play a part in that question? W.E.B. DuBois, of neighboring Great Barrington, had familial ties to Sheffield and he interacted with community members. How did the experience of Black persons in the greater Southern Berkshires make an impact on his writings, philosophy and establishment of the NAACP?
This project hopes to reveal history previously hidden, ignored and forgotten. And it was not just ordinary history. It is the history of a community born of a landmark event of the ending of slavery in the state by one of its members, a community that was the first to heed Lincoln’s call for a Black regiment to free those enslaved in the South, and a community that was part of a greater Southern Berkshire Black community where a pioneer of racial justice in America was born, raised and educated.
What this project is all about
“After Elizabeth Freeman: the Untold Story of the Black Community of Sheffield” is a project funded by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities 2022 “Expand Massachusetts Stories” grant. The project is a collaboration between the Sheffield Historical Society and Westfield State University. Its goal is to uncover the history of the Black community in Sheffield, Massachusetts between 1781 and 1915. The outcome will be a series of programs, exhibits, media and place markers that educates the public on the history of the community.
For a small New England town, Sheffield’s Black community had impacts on history that extended far beyond its borders. The first enslaved person to successfully sue for freedom in the state, Elizabeth Freeman, was from Sheffield and her case was the catalyst that led to the end of slavery in the state in 1783. The next significant milestone we know of was during the Civil War when 11 Black men enlisted in the Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment. Indeed, the first man to enlist in the regiment and serve, Milo Freeland, was a local farmer.
Our questions are: How did this Black community, largely segregated in an area called New Guinea, become established between 1790-1860? Who were the families? Were they once enslaved people or their descendants? Sheffield has borders with Connecticut and New York, states that did not fully abolish slavery until decades later. This resulted in a small, regional “underground railroad” of people escaping to Massachusetts. Is this a significant factor in the origin of Sheffield’s Black community? The town also was on transportation routes of New York City and Connecticut port towns, so it’s possible that they may have been free or enslaved elsewhere in North America. The project will also look at what freedom meant to those who were free Blacks in a time, and a place, namely Massachusetts, when every other Northern state had a system of gradual abolition or, as in the South, perpetual slavery through law.
We know through tax records that a good portion of Black families in the years leading up to the Civil War owned property and had established businesses or trades. So, why did these men, with property, vocations, families to support--men who were already free--lead the way in volunteering to fight to free those enslaved in the South? Does the achievement of Elizabeth Freeman play a part in that question? W.E.B. DuBois, of neighboring Great Barrington, had familial ties to Sheffield and he interacted with community members. How did the experience of Black persons in the greater Southern Berkshires make an impact on his writings, philosophy and establishment of the NAACP?
This project hopes to reveal history previously hidden, ignored and forgotten. And it was not just ordinary history. It is the history of a community born of a landmark event of the ending of slavery in the state by one of its members, a community that was the first to heed Lincoln’s call for a Black regiment to free those enslaved in the South, and a community that was part of a greater Southern Berkshire Black community where a pioneer of racial justice in America was born, raised and educated.
