Slavery & Amherst

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, race-based enslavement was widespread across New England. However, the history of slavery in our region has sometimes been overlooked, misunderstood, or misrepresented. This is perhaps due to the rise of abolitionism that emerged in the late 1700s and 1800s, a mood and movement that contrasted sharply with proslavery sentiments flourishing in the southern states. Proslavery attitudes dominated the south, making it easier to draw sharp distinctions between the two regions. The visual landscape itself also played a role in a perceived difference between slavery in the north and south, with an overwhelming presence of large-scale plantations contrasting sharply with the lack of spatially-expansive chattel slavery in our region. This has led some people to assume that New England slavery was somehow an “easier” or less harsh form of enslavement than existed elsewhere; this assumption is untrue.

What is true is that antislavery activism became widespread in the north by the mid-1800s, but this should not be conflated with a white population that was progressive-minded or pro-Black. Many people who promoted the end of slavery advocated the relocation of enslaved people from the United States to Africa or elsewhere. This colonization movement (as it was called) was born of a racialized desire to free white America from its entanglement with slavery; it was less concerned with Black people living freely. In his book Slavery in the North: Forgetting History and Recovering Memory, Marc Howard Ross writes “With the onset of the American Revolution, challenges to Northern slavery and calls for abolition increased. Northern abolition, however, was generally very gradual, and the rates at which it occurred varied widely across the states. In no way, however, were abolitionists in favor of equality” (Ross, 56-57). Thus, the motives that drove antislavery in New England were not necessarily the results of anti-racist beliefs or actions, but in some instances were rooted in racialized prejudices and pro-segregationist ideals. The legacies of anti-Black sentiment that allowed slavery to persist here for over a century remain with us today. 

We are still learning about Amherst College’s relationship to the institution of slavery. At first glance, it would seem that the timing of the College’s founding – 1821 – precludes it from any direct relationship whatsoever; the state of Massachusetts officially had declared slavery illegal over three decades earlier. However, as is suggested by the historical context above, little about the history of American slavery is straightforward. Below is an overview of what is currently known about Amherst College’s ties to institutional slavery, both indirect and direct; research is ongoing.

Slavery and Amherst College

Our research team has identified several key individuals and/or families whose contributions to Amherst College were directly connected to the institution of slavery. Below are a few individuals whose ties to this system are immediately traceable through archival evidence and, where known, the names of those who were enslaved by them; this list is by no means exhaustive.

Rev. David Parsons (1712-1781) & Pomp/Pompey, Rose, Goffy, and Betty

Reverend David Parsons was born to Sarah Stebbins and Rev. David Parsons, Sr. in 1712 at Malden, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard in 1729 he began itinerating in several Western Massachusetts towns. He arrived to the Hadley area in 1735 but remained unconvinced to settle anywhere until late 1739, at which point he agreed to serve as minister for Hadley’s Third Precinct. In 1740, he purchased 412 acres of land formerly belonging to the Porter family for £147, or about $38,000 in today’s currency. ¹

In 1744, Rev. Parsons married into the Wells family of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Together he and his wife, Eunice, raised six children on the eastern side of Hadley, incorporated as the town of Amherst in 1759. With its incorporation, Rev. Parsons officially became the minister of the First Parish Church (although he had been operating in this capacity since the 1740s), and the congregation’s original building was located atop the hill where the Octagon sits today. The Parsons family would have lived across the road at the family farm, approximately located between what is today the President’s House and Amherst Cinema.

The Parsons enslaved at least one man, Pomp, and it is also possible they enslaved three other people: Rose, Goffy, and Betty. ² There are several pieces of documentary evidence to substantiate such claims, the most notable being an ad Parsons placed in 1760:

Eleven years prior to placing the above ad, Rev. Parsons made two noteworthy entries in the baptismal section of his parish record book, both on the same January day in 1749. The first was for his infant son, David Jr., and the second was for a Black child of unknown age, Goffy; see handwritten image, 4-5 lines from bottom.

Local historian James Avery Smith brought this baptismal record to the attention of readers seeking the history of Black life in Amherst with his 1999 publication The History of the Black Population of Amherst, Massachusetts, 1728-1870 (1999).³ In 2009, former Amherst College physics professor, Robert Romer (’52), built upon this effort with his own groundbreaking study of slavery in the area, Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts (2009).⁴ By pairing the baptismal record from 1749 with Parsons’ ad for Pomp from 1760, the conclusion was drawn that Parsons enslaved a man named Pomp, his wife, and their child.

Two additional sets of documents – a transference of church membership and a doctor’s account book – suggest that Rev. Parsons enslaved a woman named Bettee/Betty in 1759 and 1760. More research is necessary to conclude whether her husband, Pomp, was the same Pompey listed in the baptismal record, but it is safe to say he is the same man who was being sought in 1760.

The Parsons family was significant to the founding of Amherst College. Rev. Parsons’ position as minister made him a prominent and influential person in the area. Besides serving as conduits for spiritual matters, colonial-era ministers played quasi-political roles as well, advising their communities on not just sacred but secular issues. Rev. Parsons appears to have been distantly related to the Parsons of Northampton, thus his access to resources would have stretched beyond the confines of tiny Amherst and into the far side of the Connecticut River Valley.

When Rev. Parsons died in 1781, his son, Rev. David Parsons, D.D. (1749-1823), took over his ministry. By the turn of the 19th century, the Parsons family still held a substantial amount of land in Amherst/Hadley, spanning what is today Amity Street, southward toward Route 9, and down the hill toward Hadley. Rev. David Parsons, D.D. donated or sold at a discounted rate some of this land to Amherst Academy and Amherst College. 

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Israel Elliot Trask (1775-1835) & Cesar, Lucy, Sally, and the “Trask 250”

Israel E. Trask (1773-1835) was a donor and Amherst Trustee from 1821 until his death in 1835. Born in Brimfield, Massachusetts, he spent his youth in New England then relocated to Mississippi in 1801. He briefly established a law practice in New Orleans, was involved in the handover of the Louisiana Purchase, and enslaved over 250 people on cotton plantations in Woodville, Mississippi in partnership with his brother, James L. Trask. Israel Trask moved back to Massachusetts in 1812, established a cotton mill, and continued managing his plantations from afar until his death in 1835. Upon his return to Massachusetts, he brought several enslaved people with him to continue serving his family in various capacities at their Springfield home. Included among them was a man named Cesar and two women, Lucy and Sally.

Amherst alum Anna Smith (‘22) conducted extensive research into the Trask family for her senior thesis. According to her findings, the most traceable connection between Trask and Amherst comes in the form of his financial contributions. In 1818, Trask pledged $500 to the Amherst College Charity Fund, an amount that may sound insignificant today but has a relative inflated worth of nearly $13,000 and was a sum at the upper end of amounts pledged during that time. He later made a series of three interest payments, the total of which amounted to $210, bringing his total financial contributions to the Charity Fund to a relative inflated worth of around $20,000. 

While the financial contributions made by Trask may be the most traceable, they were not his most significant contribution: aiding the College in securing its official charter from the state. Smith writes that in 1824 Amherst College “was fighting to secure its charter and facing heavy opposition from Williams College. In preparation of intense financial scrutiny from the Massachusetts legislature and in response to the deaths of several of the bearers of the original guaranty bond, the College began a new $30,000 fund in 1822 as proof of its financial stability. However, the primary subscribers to the fund were women and minors and thus more easily challenged and discredited.” To be sure the College did not fail, Israel Trask (along with two other men, Nathaniel Smith and John Fiske), “pledged to cover the subscriptions made by women and minors,” and “while it remains unclear if Trask paid out on this guarantee, it is clear that he was instrumental in helping to secure the charter.”⁵ 

Our Archives holds a small collection of Trask’s manuscript correspondence. Included in these writings are frequent references to enslaved people, his plantations, and few mentions of Amherst College. Full digitization of the Trask manuscripts for addition to Amherst College Digital Collections will take some time, but fortunately there is a typed transcription available as a PDF download. Anna Smith also took digital photos of the entire collection to support her own research, which are available for download as well. Trask’s business records are at Harvard University’s Baker Library.

To view material held at Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, see:

• Israel Trask Correspondence OCR (Trask Papers, Folder 19-20)
• Research images of the Israel E. Trask Papers:
  • Trask Folders 1-8
  • Trask Folders 9-12
  • Trask Folders 13-15
  • Trask Folders 16-18 and 21-23
  • Alice Laidlaw Williams – Trask Folder 24

• To read Anna Smith’s findings, see her essays:
  •  “Who Was Israel Trask to Amherst?” 
  • “Israel Trask and the 1811 German Coast Uprising”
  • “History is Complicated, or, Israel Trask and Abolition”
  • “Israel E. Trask and Paternalism”
  • “There Are No Good Billionaires, or the Trask-Dickinson Connection”

For more on the legacy of the Trask family, slavery, and how this history intersects with Amherst College, see professional genealogist Nicka Sewell-Smith’s project, The Trask 250 Multimedia Series. Sewell-Smith, a direct descendent of people enslaved by the Trasks, has spent over a decade tracing this ancestral lineage and presented some of her research here at Amherst in October 2021; see “Held in the Balance: The Trask 250”. She projects that by early 2025 over 10,000 people will have been identified as descendants of the 250 people once enslaved by the Trask family.

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The Cowls Family & Wealthy Wheeler (1780?-1871)

The Cowls (sometimes “Cowles” or “Coles”) were among the families of European descent who relocated to the Hadley area in the seventeenth century. The “Homestead House” (circa 1730s), a historic building located on UMass Amherst’s campus, credits its construction to a member of the Cowls family. This house served as the family home for generations spanning the 1730s to 1860s, then in 1864 the house and surrounding land was purchased by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the establishment of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (today’s UMass). Of the many Cowls who lived in the area during the 1700s and 1800s, of direct interest to Amherst College are Oliver Sr. and his sons, Oliver Jr. and Rufus.

According to local historian James Avery Smith, around 1790 Oliver Cowls, Jr. purchased an enslaved child from Northampton merchant and enslaver, Samuel Parsons.⁶ She is known in Amherst town history as Wealthy Wheeler (1780?-1871) and appears to have lived with the Cowls family for a significant portion of her life, or at the very least the final two decades of it.⁷ Smith’s research concludes that Wheeler was “considered a free person,” but “lived in Oliver’s household through 1850 without receiving any wages.” She does not show up in census records related to the Cowls family until 1855 but is presumed to have lived with them throughout her lifetime.

Wealthy Wheeler lived to be 90 years old. She died of consumption on June 2, 1871 and is listed in two Amherst town death records, one of which lists her birthplace as “unknown,” her birth year as 1781, and her occupation as “formerly a slave”:

James Avery Smith investigated Wealthy Wheeler’s decades-long relationship with the Cowls family, as have researchers working with this project, yet much remains unclear about her life. If Oliver Cowls purchased her as an enslaved child, when did she attain her freedom and by what means? Who was she to Levi Dickinson Cowls? Why did she remain with the family for so long? Despite these ambiguities, what is clear is that several members of the Cowls family donated money to Amherst College during its founding years. Especially noteworthy is a substantial donation of land gifted to the College by Dr. Rufus Cowls (1767-1837), the secretary and fundraising agent of Amherst Academy. His donation of “land in Maine” was valued at $3,000, the deed of which transferred ownership to the Trustees of Amherst Academy on October 6, 1824. Dr. Cowls’ possession of this land serves as an example of the ongoing dispossession of the Indigenous inhabitants of New England, in this case the traditional homelands of the Passamaquoddy. The location of Cowls’ land in Washington County, Maine, is currently home to the Passamaquoddy Pleasant Point Reservation and the Passamaquoddy Indian Township Reservation.

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By the mid-1800s, processing and manufacturing cotton goods had become a firmly entrenched industry in New England. Much of the cotton grown by enslaved people on southern plantations was sent northward, and several notable individuals affiliated with Amherst College made their fortunes profiting from this industry. In addition to the aforementioned Trask family, Samuel Williston and Samuel and Nathan Appleton are credited with providing the College with financial sustenance during lean years. Other notable donors include wealthy Bostonian philanthropist, David Sears, and textile mill owner and Amherst College admirer, Samuel Austin Hitchcock. Each of these individuals aided in the cultivation of Amherst College’s reputation as an elite institution, and research into their contributions and influence is currently underway.

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1. “Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986,” images, FamilySearch, Hampden > Deeds 1747-1750 vol R-S > image 520 of 692; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts. ↩︎
2. More on this in a forthcoming research blog. ↩︎
3. James Avery Smith, The History of the Black Population of Amherst, Massachusetts, 1728-1870. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999. ↩︎
4. Robert H. Romer, Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts. Amherst: Levellers Press, 2009. ↩︎
5. Anna Smith, “Who Was Israel Trask to Amherst?” Racial History blog, Sept. 2, 2021. ↩︎
6. Smith, The History of the Black Population of Amherst, Massachusetts, 1728-1870, 130-131. It is possible the purchaser was Oliver Cowls, Sr., who was still alive at that time, but Smith cites the purchaser Oliver’s death date as 1850, which implies Oliver Cowls, Jr. The merchant who sold Wealthy Wheeler, Samuel Parsons, was a distant relative of Rev. David Parsons. ↩︎
7. Federal and state census records indicate that Wheeler lived in the household of Levi Dickinson Cowls in 1855, 1860, 1865. ↩︎