Black Kings and Governors of New England

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From about 1750 to 1850, New England had at least 31 elected black kings and governors, nearly all of them enslaved.

They were elected on ‘Negroes Hallowday’ or “Negroes Election Day,” the most important day of the year. Black men held it annually on the same day the white men of New England gathered to vote for their leaders.

In the royal colonies where the Crown appointed the governor – New Hampshire and Massachusetts – black men elected black kings.

In the charter colonies where white men elected their own governor – Rhode Island and Connecticut – black men elected black governors. (For a list of known black governors of Connecticut, click here.)

African-Americans elected a king in Portsmouth, N.H. So did the Massachusetts towns of Salem and Lynn. Newport and Narragansett in Rhode Island elected black governors, as did a handful of towns in Connecticut.

For New England’s African slaves, Election Day meant a rare break from toil and a chance to poke fun at their white masters. They could express pride in their African heritage. And they could elect black kings and governors to maintain discipline among the slaves. Better they do it than their white masters, went the rationale.

Rum, Gingerbread and Election Cake

Election Day began with the Puritans as a jolly secular holiday. The colonists traveled to town in spring or early summer to elect their local leaders. Some had to travel quite far, and might stay overnight.

Important families, or maybe the local government, hosted election-day celebrations. They served rum and gingerbread and thick, fruit-studded election cakes.

The masters let the slaves take Election Day off or brought them into town. According to Salem minister William Bentley, African bondsmen and servants “were too restless at home to be of any use till (the election holidays) were over.”

And so the Africans started organizing their own elections and their own celebrations. They did it first in Newport and Hartford and then throughout New England.

In Connecticut, an enslaved African named London served as the first black governor known to history. London, who belonged to Capt. Thomas Seymour, won election as Connecticut governor in Hartford in 1755.

As Connecticut Colony’s population grew, black residents began to elect leaders who lived nearby. Historians know of black governors in Derby, Durham, Farmington, New Haven, New London, Norwich and Seymour.

A Real Black King

One of New England’s black kings, Nero Brewster, had been born of royal lineage in Africa early in the 18^th century. As a child, slavers captured him, took him to the American colonies and sold him  to a wealthy tavern owner in Portsmouth, N.H.

For many years, Nero won the annual Negro Election and presided over an informal black government that mirrored the white polity.

Other black kings had royal African blood. Even before the Negro Election began in Lynn, Mass., African immigrants honored a prince of Africa named Pompey. Slavers had captured and sold him, but his master freed him when he grew too old to work.

Pompey then moved to a little glade near the Saugus River Every year he hosted a holiday for the African bondsmen from nearby towns. Women picked flowers to crown old King Pompey, and the men sat and talked about happier times on the Gambia River in West Africa.

Monarchs Held in Esteem

Some black kings and governors won election because of their achievements, their strength or their abilities.  Their rank could also reflect their masters’ stature. Nero Brewster’s master, Col. William Brewster, owned the Bell Tavern in Portsmouth, a well-known gathering place for patriots during the Revolutionary War.

Hartford’s Black Governor Peleg Nott, described as “a first rate feller,” had traveled far. He drove a provision cart during the American Revolution. Black Governor Tobiah of Derby, Conn., was “a man of tact, courage and unusual intelligence.”

Black Governor Guy Watson of South Kingston fought in the 1^st Rhode Island Regiment at the battles of Red Bank and Ticonderoga.

And black Governor Quosh Freeman of Derby, Conn., was a “man of herculean strength, a giant six-footer.”

The Parade

Portsmouth’s Negro Election Day was probably typical of what happened throughout New England.

Black King Nero dressed in his finest clothes to lead a procession of slaves and freedmen from Portsmouth and neighboring towns. His honor guard, perhaps decked out in feathers, flowers and ribbons, accompanied him.

The parade started with the crack of a gunshot. Marchers made a happy racket with many African languages, gunshots, tambourines, banjos, fiddles and drums. All the slaves wore their best clothes, often hand-me-downs from their masters, altered with an African flair. They borrowed swords, guns and even horses from their masters.

What did their costumes look like? According to a description of one fugitive from slavery, he wore a Saxon blue jacket with bright green baize lining, slash sleeves and small metal buttons, a brown sleeveless jacket and scarlet breeches.

In Portsmouth and elsewhere, bondsmen deliberately played the fool in their gaudy Election Day costumes. White people looked on with enjoyment, belittling the slaves’ deportment and clothing as “fantastic.”

Today, historians note the white onlookers didn’t understand that the black celebrants were making fun of their stiffness and pretensions. Some historians view their antics as a form of self-preservation. They didn’t want white people intimidated by their claim to participate in government.

Haranguing and Socializing

When the Portsmouth marchers reached an open space, Nero and his opponent harangued each other as the crowd socialized and celebrated. Women, who couldn’t vote, lobbied for their favorite candidates. The revelers reunited with friends and family who lived far away, and exchanged news and opinion about the white people they served.

More than a hundred probably took part, for in 1767 Portsmouth alone had 124 male and 63 female slaves, according to Brewster’s Rambles. (The total population of Portsmouth, one of the biggest cities in the colonies, reached 4,466 that year.)

After about three hours of electioneering and merriment, men voted and then declared Nero the black king. He subsequently announced his court: Viceroy Willie Clarkson, Sheriff Jock Odiorne and Deputy Sheriff Pharoah Shores. All came from Africa.

Who ran against Black King Nero? One wonders if it was ever Prince Whipple, the literate servant of William Whipple, who lived in the Moffatt-Ladd House.

Prince Whipple, born a prince of Africa, served as General Whipple’s bodyguard during the Revolutionary War. He also stood with the general at the Battle of Saratoga and at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

According to legend, Prince Whipple accompanied George Washington during his famous crossing of the Delaware.

In the 1851 painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, some identify the black oarsman as Prince Whipple.

Victory Party

Regardless of whom he defeated at the polls, Black King Nero led the raucous procession back to his master’s house for a victory party. As at the other Negroes Hallowdays, Nero’s master  paid for the meal, though the black slaves and freedmen prepared it.

Nero and his so-called Negro Court were toasted indoors, while games were played and athletic competitions held outside. At the end of the day the celebrants moved to the slave quarters, where they danced energetically to fiddle tunes of West African origin or influence.

The black elections could get expensive for the masters. In Narragansett, R.I., E.R. Potter’s slave John was elected governor. Potter, a state and federal legislator, told John that one of them would have to give up politics or the expenses would ruin them both. John stepped down.

Black Kings and Their Courts

Throughout the next year, Black King Nero meted out judgments and punishments to slaves accused of petty crimes.

In 1859, Portsmouth columnist C.W. Brewster described one trial in a typically condescending (for whites) account. A slave named Prince Jackson reportedly stole an ax. The black sheriff, Jock Odiorne, seized him and summoned the court.

Black King Nero sat for the examination in which evidence was submitted. He found Prince guilty and condemned him to 20 lashes on the bare back at the town pump.

The slaves gathered at the pump. Then, wrote Brewster,

…the Sheriff, after taking off his coat and tying up the convict to the pump, hands the whip to his deputy, Pharaoh Shores, addressing the company, “Gemmen, this way we s’port our government” – turning to his deputy – “Now, Pharaoh, pay on !” After the whipping was over, the sheriff dismissed the prisoner, telling him that the next time he is found this side Christian Shore, unless sent by his master, he will receive twenty lashes more.

Prince did not reform. Shortly afterward he was found guilty of larger thefts and taken to the white people’s court.

“Here, we feel a just equality”

During the Revolutionary War, Black King Nero led at least one meeting of 20 black slaves to discuss their freedom. He may well have held more.

Inspired by revolutionary ideals and hatred of their servitude, they drew up a petition demanding their freedom. They may have borrowed some of the language from the patriots who talked of revolution at the Bell Tavern. They certainly took some language from the Declaration of Independence.

The petition ensured that history remembered Black King Nero better than his master.

As in the Declaration, the signers list their grievances and denounce their enemies:

…thro’ ignorance & brutish violence of their native countrymen and by similar designs of others, (who ought to have taught them better) & by the avarice of both, they, while but children, and incapable of self defense, whose infancy might have prompted protection, were seized, imprisoned, and transported from their native country, where (tho’ ignorance and inchristianity prevailed) they were born free to a country, where (tho’ knowledge, christianity and freedom, are their boast) they are compelled, and their unhappy posterity, to drag on their lives in miserable servitude. . . .

The Dignity of Human Nature

The bondsmen emphatically rejected any idea that they are inferior to white people. “[H]ere, we feel the passions and desires of men, tho’ check’d by the rod of slavery! here, we feel a just equality!” they wrote.

And they ended with a prayer, “that the name of SLAVE may no more be heard in a land gloriously contending for the sweets of freedom.”

They submitted the handwritten petition for freedom to the General Assembly in Exeter on Nov. 12, 1779. According to Black Portsmouth, the original manuscript disappeared. No one knows whether the men signed their own names or used a mark.

It was read in the House of Representatives on April 25, 1780, and ordered published in the New Hampshire Gazette. The newspaper printed it that summer, with a disclaimer that it was intended “for the amusement “ of its readers.

The House then took up the petition on June 9, 1780, but decided to table it until “a more convenient opportunity.”  No other legislative action would be taken on it for 234 years.

Finally, Freedom

Six of the signers of the New Hampshire petition, including Prince Whipple, gained their freedom after the Revolution. Black King Nero died a slave, and possibly as the last black king of Portsmouth. Historians haven’t unearthed any evidence that any other black kings were elected after he died.

Nero’s obituary described him as, “A Monarch, who, while living, was held in reverential esteem by his subjects consequently, his death is greatly lamented.”

In 2013, state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark of Portsmouth declared Nero Brewster and the other 19 captive Africans deserved some closure. She filed a bill before the Legislature to posthumously free the remaining 15 slaves. The bill then passed, and Gov. Maggie Hassan signed it into law. King Nero Brewster won his freedom, on Friday, June 7, 2013.

What’s more:

Our story owes thanks to two books about black kings and governors: Black Portsmouth and Black Yankees.

Prince Whipple died in 1796 at age 46 and now lies buried in Portsmouth’s North Cemetery. In 1908, local military veterans placed a stone on his grave.

In October 2003, road contractors rediscovered the Negro Burying Ground under Portsmouth’s Chestnut Street.

This story about black kings and governors was updated in 2023.