[Lecture] John Remond
Feb. 2nd, 2006 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidThis was the first of a series of four Thursday lunch lectures about slavery in New England (for African-American History Month, I assume), hosted by the Old South Meeting House. Professor Julie Winch read part of a chapter of a book she's writing about free people of color in New England (in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I assume, as her other books are). The chapter focused on John Remond, father of abolitionists Charles Lenox Remond and Sarah Remond (he and she both traveled to Europe in the cause of abolition. She also trained as a doctor, worked with revolutionaries in Italy, and married an Italian from Florence).
John Remond was born a free person (or freed not long after his birth) in 1780 in Curacao, then a Dutch colony. Not long after an unsuccessful slave rebellion, he set sail for Salem, to work for a baker. It's unclear if he was sent away from the political situation, or it was an opportunity grabbed, or he wanted to leave. In any case, he worked as a baker for years (and became literate in English), then moved to Boston and learned to be a hair dresser. He took the position of caretaker at Hamilton Hall back in Salem, which gave him the opportunity to manage the property, and have both hairdressing and bakery/catering businesses. He started working with Nancy Lenox, daughter of a free black Revolutionary War veteran, and they married not long after. They had eight children who lived past childhood, and their businesses thrived (as evidenced by the ads he took out in the papers, advertising all sorts of foods available, also hair weaving and wig dressing, perfumes and ribbons (with some "appropriate for children and elections"!), provisioning ships, arranging delivery of long-distance goods, and so on). He catered many high society events, too.
In 1811, he came before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to become a citizen of the US. This was not usual for men of his race, but apparently he was well known enough that it passed.
In 1827 he supported the first black newpaper in the country, written in New York. He became a life member of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. And in 1835, to protest his daughters being kept out of Salem's high school because of their race (they'd passed the entrance exams), he moved his family to Newport, RI. By 1841 they had returned to Salem, because he'd worked to integrate the schools. Too late for his daughters, but in time for his grandchildren. It was one of the first towns to have integrated schools. The availability of education was a magnet for other families of color.
John officially retired two years later, but after a year off, he came out of retirement as a wine merchant, leaving the businesses he'd passed on to his wife and children in their hands. In 1853, he applied for a passport, to make a trip to New Orleans, Cuba, and Curacao, returning by way of England or France. It was rare that any man of color was given a passport, because that would mean he was a free citizen, but because of his 1811 citizenship, he did get the passport (though it's unclear whether he ever made this journey).
John died in 1874, weeks after his last son died of consumption. There were obituaries in the newspapers, in Boston as well as Salem, which mentioned his catering and other business accomplishments, but mentioned nothing of his work towards abolition nor of the integration of Salem's schools.
There are photos of some of the family, probably from around the 1860s: John, his wife Nancy, their son Charles Lenox Remond, and their daughter Sarah Parker Remond.
ETA The lecture is (will be?) available in its entirety at WGBH.
Last month I read Bury the Chains (about the abolition movement in England), which has made these lectures more interesting, in comparison.
The three upcoming lectures are
John Remond was born a free person (or freed not long after his birth) in 1780 in Curacao, then a Dutch colony. Not long after an unsuccessful slave rebellion, he set sail for Salem, to work for a baker. It's unclear if he was sent away from the political situation, or it was an opportunity grabbed, or he wanted to leave. In any case, he worked as a baker for years (and became literate in English), then moved to Boston and learned to be a hair dresser. He took the position of caretaker at Hamilton Hall back in Salem, which gave him the opportunity to manage the property, and have both hairdressing and bakery/catering businesses. He started working with Nancy Lenox, daughter of a free black Revolutionary War veteran, and they married not long after. They had eight children who lived past childhood, and their businesses thrived (as evidenced by the ads he took out in the papers, advertising all sorts of foods available, also hair weaving and wig dressing, perfumes and ribbons (with some "appropriate for children and elections"!), provisioning ships, arranging delivery of long-distance goods, and so on). He catered many high society events, too.
In 1811, he came before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to become a citizen of the US. This was not usual for men of his race, but apparently he was well known enough that it passed.
In 1827 he supported the first black newpaper in the country, written in New York. He became a life member of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. And in 1835, to protest his daughters being kept out of Salem's high school because of their race (they'd passed the entrance exams), he moved his family to Newport, RI. By 1841 they had returned to Salem, because he'd worked to integrate the schools. Too late for his daughters, but in time for his grandchildren. It was one of the first towns to have integrated schools. The availability of education was a magnet for other families of color.
John officially retired two years later, but after a year off, he came out of retirement as a wine merchant, leaving the businesses he'd passed on to his wife and children in their hands. In 1853, he applied for a passport, to make a trip to New Orleans, Cuba, and Curacao, returning by way of England or France. It was rare that any man of color was given a passport, because that would mean he was a free citizen, but because of his 1811 citizenship, he did get the passport (though it's unclear whether he ever made this journey).
John died in 1874, weeks after his last son died of consumption. There were obituaries in the newspapers, in Boston as well as Salem, which mentioned his catering and other business accomplishments, but mentioned nothing of his work towards abolition nor of the integration of Salem's schools.
There are photos of some of the family, probably from around the 1860s: John, his wife Nancy, their son Charles Lenox Remond, and their daughter Sarah Parker Remond.
ETA The lecture is (will be?) available in its entirety at WGBH.
Last month I read Bury the Chains (about the abolition movement in England), which has made these lectures more interesting, in comparison.
The three upcoming lectures are
- February 9, American runaway slaves who escaped to the British
- February 16, how 19th century Bostonians used the Revolution to make a case for or against slavery
- February 23, the life of William Lloyd Garrison