The Database for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in Wells, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel

Phillis's daughter


Enslaver: Joseph Hobbs

Status (enslaved, free or both): enslaved

Town: Wells

Known dates:

Phillis was enslaved by Joseph Hobbs. Her 5 year old daughter was taken from her and sold in Saco.

"Joseph Hobbs had two [enslaved people], Zelph and Phillis. Phillis has a little daughter of the age of five years, to whom she was bound by all the ties which take hold of a mother's heart. But a distinguished Revolutionary officer, with the same heartlessness which we have been wont to attribute to those engaged in the slave trade, took this little child from its mother, and, as he would any article of produce, carried her to Saco, and there sold her. The agony of the poor mother in this cruel separation, was said to be indescribable. Yet there were no relentings and no remorse on the part of the trader, which led to any attempt to rescind the unholy contract. It does not seem that our own townsmen had any more doubt, in the judgment of conscience, as to the legitimacy of this traffic; and that a negro was a mere chattel, subject to be bought and sold at the will of the master, than they had that right of sale in the owner, was a condition of incident of any other property. There was no special callousness of heart in this transaction. The same feeling was general in relation to the slave; and all the odious features of the institution, of which so much has been said at the present day, were exhibited everywhere in New England." - Bourne, p. 407

Bibliography:

The History of Wells and Kennebunk from the Earliest Settlement to the Year 1820 - by Edward Bourne (1875)

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