Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England

This talk celebrated the release of Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England with author Dr. Gloria McCahon Whiting.

New England is often considered a cradle of liberty in United States history, but it was also a cradle of slavery. From the earliest years of colonization, New Englanders bought and sold people, most of whom were of African descent. In Belonging, Gloria McCahon Whiting tells the region’s early history from the perspective of the people, like Jane and Sebastian, who belonged to others and who struggled to maintain a sense of belonging among their kin. Through a series of meticulously reconstructed family narratives, Whiting traces the contours of enslaved people’s intimate lives in early New England, where they often lived with those who bound them but apart from kin. Enslaved spouses rarely were able to cohabit; fathers and their offspring routinely were separated by inheritance practices; children could be removed from their mothers at an enslaver’s whim; and people in bondage had only partial control of their movement through the region, which made more difficult the task of maintaining distant relationships.

But Belonging does more than lay bare the obstacles to family stability for those in bondage. Whiting also charts Afro-New Englanders’ persistent demands for intimacy throughout the century and a half stretching from New England’s founding to the American Revolution. And she shows how the work of making and maintaining relationships influenced the region’s law, religion, society, and politics. Ultimately, the actions taken by people in bondage to fortify their families played a pivotal role in bringing about the collapse of slavery in New England’s most populous state, Massachusetts.

SPEAKER BIO

Dr. Gloria McCahon Whiting is E. Gordon Fox Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has received numerous teaching awards for her courses on early American history. Her scholarly work has been featured in a variety of journals, including the Journal of American History, the William and Mary Quarterly, and Slavery & Abolition. She recently launched a public-facing digital humanities project on slavery, liberty, and the American Revolution, which can be found at freedom-seekers.org. And her first book, titled Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England, was published in August of 2024 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.