Join the 17th Century
Explore the story of early Boston, Massachusetts, and the wider 17TH century world
resisting tyranny
With this year’s lecture series, Tyranny vs Liberty: Politics in 17th Century New England, we’ve seen how New England Puritans established unprecedented rights and liberties for themselves. Thanks to brilliant presentations by historians David Hall and Francis J. Bremer, we’ve seen, too, how many myths about Puritans (theocrats, autocrats, the first Christian nationalists) are simply not true.
But while the Puritans planted the seeds of representative government, what about those denied those same rights? Linda Coombs, Aquinnah Wampanoag author and historian, examined the consequences of colonial political decisions for Native people: loss of land, loss of sovereignty, resistance. Award-winning historian Margaret Newell, along with Egypt Lloyd of the Slave Legacy History Coalition and Brown University historian Linford Fisher, investigated the network of Indigenous and Black people helping the enslaved to resists and escape the tyranny of slavery.
You can watch all their presentations, here.
In the final presentation in our series, Chernoh Sesay Jr. brings us back to the question of basic rights, as we hear about the petitions filed by Boston’s Black freemasons. Nearly 150 years after the Puritans granted liberties to themselves, including the right to vote, Black people in Massachusetts were still demanding these same rights for themselves.
This document testifying to the free status of the bearer was forged by a Rhode Island Black man, who risked his life to ensure that others could be free. Courtesy of Margaret Newell
Events
“Petition after petition”
chernoh sesay, jr.
ONLINE, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2024, 7-8:30PM
Nearly 150 years after the Puritans wrote laws granting themselves inherent rights, Boston’s Black Freemasons petitioned for freedom - claiming the rights denied, they wrote, to those “detained in a state of slavery in the Bowels of a free Christian Country.” Join historian Chernoh Sesay Jr. in this vital talk on the Black freemasons’ powerful, eloquent petitions for freedom and their role in the abolitionist movement - shedding light on the complicated relationship between “tyrannies” and “liberties” in the Revolutionary era and the legacy of the Puritan polity.
“It really hit home that this is why history is so critical.”
participant, reading group
Change the flag and Seal!
After 82 towns voted yes, a special state commission explored its history and meaning, and campaigners worked for years, governor Maura Healey signed a bill in July 2024 authorising the creation, over a period of a year, of a new flag and seal for Massachusetts - one that will represent, not domination over Indigenous people, but respect for all its citizens. The campaign’s David Detmold reports.
what were they thinking?
At the top of the shopping list was a simple word: “ministers". Thus the priority for the Puritan colonists preparing to leave England for their new world. First Church in Boston was precisely that - the first church, founded on arrival. What does this legacy mean today? The Rev. Dr. Stephanie May, minister of First Church Boston, offers this eloquent sermon on the anniversary of the naming of Boston as a colonial city.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
A deed of sale signed by Squaw Sachem. The cost of imprisonment for the accused in the witchcraft trials. The “A” for adultery law. Who knew that it was possible to see these remarkable documents firsthand - or that they even survived? Go behind the scenes of the Commonwealth Museum to see what the Massachusetts Archives has in store.
