Ten Hills Farm: The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North

About this book

The untold story of how colonial New England was built on the Atlantic slave trade Ten Hills Farm tells the powerful saga of five generations of slave owners in colonial New England. Settled in 1630 by John Winthrop governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Ten Hills Farm a six-hundred-acre estate just north of Boston passed from the Winthrops to the Ushers to the Royallsall prominent dynasties tied to the Native American and Atlantic slave trades. In this mesmerizing narrative C. S. Manegold exposes how the fortunes of these familiesand the fate of Ten Hills Farmwere bound to Americas most tragic and tainted legacy. Manegold follows the compelling tale from the early seventeenth to the early twenty-first century from New England through the South to the sprawling slave plantations of the Caribbean. John Winthrop famous for envisioning his "city on the hill" and lauded as a paragon of justice owned slaves on that ground and passed the first law in North America condoning slavery. Each successive owner of Ten Hills Farmfrom John Usher who was born into money to Isaac Royall who began as a humble carpenters son and made his fortune in Antiguawould depend upon slaverys profits until the 1780s when Massachusetts abolished the practice. In time the land became a city its questionable past discreetly buried until now. Challenging received ideas about America and the Atlantic world Ten Hills Farm digs deep to bring the story of slavery in the North full circlefrom concealment to recovery.