By focusing on non-Indians, we're already off on a tangent, so I'll resist the temptation to go into detail about slavery in Massachusetts or how it came to an end in the 1780's.
Instead I'll stick to telling you about the non-Indians who lived among the Mohican Indians of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. My previous post featured an African American couple, Rose and Joab, who were slaves belonging to none other than the missionary, Jonathan Edwards. With Edwards death in 1758, or perhaps before it, Joab and Rose were given their freedom. In the mid-1760's, Joab brought a six-year-old boy to Stockbridge. The boy's name was Agrippa Hull. Hull had been born to free blacks. Unfortunately, his father died when he was still an infant. His mother, being too poor to support her child, apparently made arrangements for him to go with Joab.
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This painting depicts an 85-year-old Agrippa Hull. It hangs in the public library of Stockbridge, Massachusetts.[/caption]When Agrippa Hull was eighteen years old, he enlisted in the Continental Army where he served as an orderly, first to General Patterson, and later to the Polish General Kosciuszko. Hull survived the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge and when he mustered out in 1783, his discharge papers were signed by General George Washington. (His career in the military is spelled out more fully in the Black Past site.)
Hull returned to Stockbridge, went to work for Judge Sedgewick, and married Jane, who had been a slave and left her master soon after the Massachusetts courts ruled against slavery (this was more of a process than an event, see the Emancipation in Massachusetts page). In 1785 Hull purchased a half-acre plot just across the river from Stockbridge, and over the years added to it. His farm and continued service to Judge Sedgewick made him prosperous, in fact, Blackpast.org states "Agrippa Hull lived out [President] Jefferson’s ideal of a self-disciplined, civic-minded, and self-sustaining yeoman farmer."
Electa Jones, a contemporary of Hull, has some things to add about him (page 241). She described his character as "unique" but not "eccentric." According to Jones, whose book, Stockbridge, Past and Present was published only six years after Hull's death, "He was witty, and his presence at weddings seemed almost a necessity."
On page 242 Jones shares an anecdote which I've seen quoted or paraphrased elsewhere on the web:
Once, when servant to a man who was haughty and overbearing, both to Agrippa and his master attended the same church, to listen to a discourse from a distinguished mulatto preacher. On coming out of the house, the gentleman said to Agrippa, "Well, how do you like n[-----] preaching?" "Sir," he promptly retorted, "he was half black and half white; I liked my half, how did you like yours?"
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