of Black Governors
February 1st - Today marks day one of Black History Month, 2021.
Black history is everyone's history. We celebrate Black History Month by remembering accomplishments that helped shape our Nation by Black individuals and their contribution to our communities.
Included in that narrative are the realities that history records, whether dark and shameful or worthy of celebrating - the events of the past influenced the path that led to today.
How will history look upon us at this moment in time? Whether reminiscing on the rhetoric of the struggle for equality that still exists, or remembering area individuals that made differences in the world around them, this month, we take the time to celebrate Black History.
Today, we highlight Quash and Roswell Freeman. Father and son, both men went on to become Derby’s first and third Black Governors, the latter serving three terms. This was an office that began in the northeast in 1755, and in Derby, 55-years later, that officer would be held by Quash.
Indeed, Connecticut would need to come a long way before satisfying the duty to abolish slavery, which in Derby still existed until 1840, one-year after the Amistad Rebellion, eight-years prior to the State ending slavery as a whole, and 56-years after Connecticut passed gradual emancipation laws. The context and significance of the date here must be understood and these revolutionary individuals are thus remembered.
What a powerful story it is to share - Quash who was born in Ghana, was captured and sold into slavery, traveled the Middle Passage, and received his freedom in Derby to then become Derby's first Black Governor. There is much discourse that we could have on the institutions that appointed them or the reasons behind the Governorship.
An anecdote that Orcutt (1880) shares about Quash describes that, "He [Quash Freeman] was a man of herculean strength, a giant six-footer, and it is said of him that he could take a bull by the horns and the nose and at once prostrate him to the ground. No one ever dared to molest or tried to make him afraid, and when he was approaching from a distance he awakened the sense of a coming thunder cloud... Physically speaking. Quash was probably the strongest and largest man that ever shared the gubernatorial honors of this commonwealth." At the time of the Rev. War/Pork Hollow incident, when Quash was still a slave, he was Isaac Smith Sr.'s personal bodyguard.
Below is a listing of CT’s Black Governors, courtesy of The Hartford Black History Project - you will notice that Jubal, Nelson, and Wilson Weston were Humphreysville Governors.
Horace Weston, whose father was Nelson, was regarded as the world's best banjo player in the 1880s (Raechel Guest, 2018).
Name
Location
Approximate date
Quash Freeman
Derby
1810
Tobias
Derby
1815
Roswell Freeman
Derby
1830-1835
Eben Tobias
Derby
1840-1845
Caesar
Durham
1800
Peter Freeman
Farmington
1780
William Lanson
New Haven
1825
Quash Piere
New Haven
1832
Thomas Johnson
New Haven
1833-1837
Boston Trowtrow
Norwich
1770
Sam Huntington
Norwich
1772-1800
Jubal Weston
Seymour
1825
Nelson Weston
Seymour
1850
Wilson Weston
Seymour
1855
London
Wethersfield
1760
Cuff
Woodbridge
1840
Nancy Freeman, wife of Roswell Freeman - DHS Archives
Thanks goes to Daniel Bosques, executive director, Derby Historical Society, for sharing this interesting Connecticut history.
