PROBLEMS OF CITIZENSHIP
"Having no vote or Influence in the Election of those that Tax us yet
many of our Colour (as is well known) have Cherfully Entered the field
of Battle in the defense of the Common Cause and that (as we conceive)
against a similar Exertion of Power (in Regard to taxation) too well
known to need a Recital in this place," voicing this sentiment, John
and Paul Cuffe and others sent a petition for relief to the General
Court, Massachusetts Bay, February 10, 1780. Such requests, however,
were not new. At the beginning of the American Revolution there were
probably about 7,000 Negroes, slave and free, in Massachusetts.
About 1,500 lived in Boston. A petition, signed by Prince Hall and
others, praying for the abolition of slavery, was presented to the
General Court of Massachusetts Bay in 1777. Another petition dated
February 18, 1780, embodies a pathetic and earnest appeal for relief
from taxation. It is preserved in the manuscript collection of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is signed by John and Paul Cuffe and
five others.[10] A copy is with the Cuffe papers. There are two other
copies among these papers, both shorter in form, and dated January 22,
1781.
On one of the duplicate petitions in the Cuffe papers there is a
notation signed by John Cuffe. "This is the copy," it records, "of the
petition which we did deliver unto the honorable Council and House
for relief from Taxation in the days of our distress. But we received
none."
The petition recites that they were in poor circumstances. When slaves
they were deprived of the profits of their labor and of the benefits
of inheritance. So distressed were they at this time that only five
or six owned a cow. They could not meet the taxes assessed against
them. They were aggrieved because they had no vote either in local
or colonial affairs and nobody had ever heard of one of their number
sitting in the Court of the General Assembly. The petitioners most
humbly requested the Massachusetts General Court to grant them relief
from taxation.
Interest in the Cuffe brothers is now transferred from the State
capitol to Bristol County,[11] where these men were indefatigable in
their efforts to obtain relief. Late in 1780 a petition was made "To
the Honble the Justices of the Court of General Sessions of the peace
begun and held at Taunton within and for the County of Bristol." The
petitioners ask relief from taxation on the grounds that they are
"Indian men and by law not the subjects of Taxation for any Estate
Real or personal and Humbly Pray your Honors that as they are assessed
jointly a Double Poll Tax and the said Paul is a minor for whom the
Said John is not by law answerable or chargeable that the said Poll
Taxes aforesaid and also all and regular Taxes aforesaid on their and
Each of their Real and personal Estate aforesaid, may be abated to
them and they allowed their Reasonable Costs."
The taxes for which complaint was made were for the years 1777 to
1780 inclusive, and amounted to about two hundred pounds. They were
heaviest for the years 1779 and 1780. The assessors, then, on December
15, gave Richard Collins, constable of Dartmouth, a warrant for
the arrest of the Cuffe brothers. It recites that their taxes were
delinquent for
1778: 5 lbs. 17s. 6d.
1779: 9 lbs. 2s. 8d.
29 lbs. 16s. 10-1/2d.
29 lbs. 18s. 9d.
1780: 61 lbs. 18s. 4d.
17 lbs. 7s. 5/25d.
-----
Grand total: 154 lbs. 1s. 1-7/10d.
The assessors found no estate on which to levy for the taxes. In
the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay, therefore, they
required the "said Richard Collens to take into safe custody the body
of the said John and Paul Cuffe and then commit to the common gaol of
the said County of Bristol there to remain until they, the said John
and Paul Cuffe shall pay and satisfy the above sum with all necessary
charges" or be discharged by due process of law. The constable
followed the instructions and reported on December 19 that he had
placed the Cuffe brothers in the common gaol in Taunton. For this
service, including travel for twenty-five "milds," he turned in a bill
of twelve shillings, nine pence.
The next step in the legal battle was on the part of the Cuffe
brothers. The keeper of the gaol or his underkeeper was directed
on the nineteenth of December in the "Name of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts to have the bodies of John and Paul Cuffe said to be
Indian men whom you have now in keeping before the Justices of our
Inferior Court of Common Pleas now holden at Taunton for said County
together with the cause of their and each of their Commitiment
and Detention. Hereof fail not and make Return of this writ with
your doings therein. Witness Walter Spooner Esqr." Elijah Dean,
underkeeper, produced the two men on the same day that he received the
writ of habeas corpus.
When the Court of General Sessions of the Peace met on the nineteenth
of December it ordered on the petition of John and Paul Cuffe that
the assessors of Dartmouth appear at the next term to show cause,
wherefore the Prayer of said Petition should not be granted. The order
was given to the sheriff of Bristol County on the twenty-ninth of
December. The assessors, Benjamin Russell, Richard Kriby, Christopher
Gifford, and John Smith were accordingly summoned by Elijah Dean. He
served the warrant on the twenty-sixth of February and recorded his
fee as twenty-four pence.
Meanwhile, on the twentieth of February the selectmen of Dartmouth
were called on to choose an agent to defend the action against the
Cuffe brothers. At their annual meeting on the eighth of March the
Honorable Walter Spooner, a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional
Convention 1780, was chosen in behalf of the town to make answer
to the petitioners in question. At the March meeting the case was
continued and came up for action at the next meeting of the court.
In the meantime, John and Paul Cuffe made a request to the selectmen
of Dartmouth. In the Cuffe papers three such requests are preserved.
The one dated the twenty-fourth of April is followed by a notation
attesting it a true copy of the request delivered to the selectmen.
It asks them to "put a stroak on your next Warrant for calling a town
meeting so that it may legally be Laid Before said town By way of voat
to know the mine of said town whether all free Negroes and molattoes
shall have the same Privileges in this said town of Dartmouth as the
white People have Respecting Places of profit choosing of officers and
the Like together with all other Privileges in all cases that shall
or may happen or be Brought in this said town of Dartmouth or that we
have Reliefe granted us Joyntly from Taxation which under our present
depressed circumstances and your poor Petitioners as in duty Bound
shall ever pay."
The disposition of the case as found in the records is contained in
a few sentences. One is dated the eleventh of June and is signed by
Richard Collens, constable. It reads as follows:
Then received of John Cuffe eight pounds twelve shillings silver
money in full for all John Cuffe and Paul Cuffe Rates until this
date and for all my court charges received by me.
Elijah Dean presented his bill for summoning the assessors. It was
paid, and the bill with an acknowledgment from Edward Pope is entered
in Cuffe's letter book with the tax receipt of the eleventh of June.
The other laconic note is from the Records of the Court of General
Sessions held at Taunton on June 12. It curtly "ordered that the
Petition of Paul Cuffe and John Cuffe and the proceedings thereon be
dismissed."
Several writers have commented on the significance of the petitions
of the Cuffe brothers and their resistance to the payment of taxes.
Practically all of them overestimate the matter. For example, a
representative writer says, "This was a day equally honorable to
the petitioners and to the legislature; a day in which justice and
humanity triumphed over prejudice and oppression; a day which ought
to be gratefully remembered by every person of color within the
boundaries of Massachusetts, and the names of John and Paul Cuffe,
should always be united with its recollection."[13]
There is no documentary proof for statements of this kind. A property
qualification for voting fixed by the William and Mary Charter with
slight modifications carried down to 1785. Negroes acquired rights
and privileges in Massachusetts not by special acts of the General
Assembly, but by a judicial act of 1783 based on article one of the
Declaration of Rights of the Constitution of 1780.