There are many amazing opportunities offered to interns for the Network for Social Justice, such as a recent educational visit to the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford. The group included interns, NFSJ Board members, and NFSJ and SCI staff.
In an introduction, everyone shared what they hoped to get out of the tour. Many shared that they had learned a lot about slavery in the South in school, but slavery in the North was something overlooked in history class. Over the course of the visit, I learned a lot about slavery’s place in the North, reparations, and what daily life was like for both the enslaved people and the enslavers who lived there.
Our tour guide was Toni Waldron, the Education Coordinator at the Royall House. She walked us through the house, explaining the roles of enslaved people in each room and the entire story of the Royalls, the largest slaveholding family in Massachusetts, including a bequest to Harvard Law School. We learned that there aren’t any second-floor windows facing the Slave Quarters, so that the Royalls could ignore the people who were forced into labor and played a part in nearly every part of the family’s lives. Many of these enslaved people were children, and we saw marbles they used to play. Some of the jobs they had were milking cows and collecting eggs from chickens. The quality of life was horrible, and the only standard was that they stayed alive.
Towards the end of the tour, we learned about Belinda Sutton. She had served the family since she was captured in Africa as a child but was freed upon Isaac Royall Jr’s death. In 1783, Sutton wrote a petition to the Massachusetts government, demanding compensation for her years of service. She was granted an annual pension but had to repeatedly petition for the actual payments. Many slaves never received compensation, even after the Civil War.
I’m so glad I was able to visit this museum, which is so close to Winchester, and understand more about the history and lives of people who were enslaved in our home state.