Description:

Native American
Bristol County, Massachusetts Bay, ca. October 1728
Colonial Massachusetts Slaveholder Seeks Court Aid with Runaway Native American Servant
ADS

Richard Borden, Autograph Document Signed, Petition, October 1728, Bristol County, [Massachusetts Bay Colony]. 1 p., 8.25" x 12.625". Expected folds; minor edge tears, general toning.

In this petition to the Court of General Sessions, Richard Borden of Tiverton asks permission to send his indentured Native American servant Job to sea as a sailor or rent out his service because he kept running away. The enslavement of Native Americans in New England began almost as soon as English colonists arrived. By the end of the seventeenth century, colonists had enslaved more than 1,200 Native Americans, selling some of them as slaves to other colonies.

During King Philip's War (1675-1678), English colonists enslaved large numbers of Native American captives. After the war, colonists also began to use the English court system to enslave Native Americans for criminality or debts. In the early eighteenth century, colonists bought and sold Native American servants while they had time left on their indentures. Native American slavery continued in New England up to the Revolutionary War, though it was increasingly replaced by African American slavery before the New England states banned slavery altogether or began gradual emancipation between 1777 and 1784. In 1800, there were still more than 1,300 enslaved persons in the New England states, and nearly all were African Americans.

Complete Transcript
To the Honourable the Justices of the generall sessions of the peace Held at Bristol for the county of Bristol the second 3: day of ye 8th mo called October 1728: The memoriall complaint and petition of Richard Bordon of Tiverton: off and relating his Indian servant boy named Job: of whome this Honourable court had been Informed divers times before: Relateing his absenting him selfe from time to time from his sd masters service which as far as I know hath been near or all out one hundred times: and for some of sd time this court hath aded to his time: tho not near so as to what sd out time and charge: But notwithstanding hath run away and absented him selfe several times I know not how many but so that he hath done me little service since: the last time of his absenting his selfe save one your petitioner or order corrected his sd servant as I thought sufficient for any flesh to bare and then set him about his imploy: who as I suppose did not stay above an hour or two before He ran away again: and some days after was brought home again: which often cost me money for bringing him home: But and old squaw his mother being at my house: and I being about to bring him my sd servant to the common goal: not knowing what to do with him until court: the which his sd mother took hard yet without blame: so that at last I told his sd mother she might take him and looke for a master who would buy him: thinking that to be better to be with his mother than to go about the woods and in the night seasons or getting into peoples houses and stealing their cheeses out of their presses and such like: he went with his sd mother for about a weeke and came home again: with his mother from which time I have mostly let him alone at his own dispose to Do: go and come as he pleases: for If control:d then I expect him to ran away: So that your petitioner prays this Honourable court to make such further addition to my sd servants time as in wisdom and Justice they may think fit and more especially that you will grant liberty to send my sd servant Job off a hand to sea: not desiring to sell him out of the country but to let him out on wages whereby your petitioner may be safe and save his such great charge and trouble and your petitioner shall pray &c.
pl Richard Bordon

Richard Borden (1671-ca. 1731) was born in the Plymouth Colony to John Borden (1640-1716) and Mary Earle Borden (d. 1734). In 1692, Richard Borden married Innocent Wardell, and they had at least seven children. He lived near Mount Hope Bay, a few miles south of Fall River, Massachusetts. He was one of the largest landholders and wealthiest men in the area. He was a direct ancestor of Lizzie Andrew Borden (1860-1927), who was famously tried and acquitted for the axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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