Slavery Legacy Resources

First Parish Cambridge and Slavery: Legacies and Learnings Resource List with Links

First Parish in Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist, Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 2023, updated November 2023
Compiled by Charlene Galarneau with Gloria Korsman and Cushing Giesey 

This Resource List contains key documents, websites, exhibits, presentations, and videos, with links, that center and contextualize the involvements of the First Parish community in slavery. Resources of neighboring faith communities, Harvard University, and Cambridge are included. This list is intentionally select and brief to serve as an accessible starting point for reading and research.

FIRST CHURCH and FIRST PARISH

The present-day First Parish in Cambridge UU and the present-day First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, UCC, (on Garden Street) were originally one church called First Church until the 1829 split into two congregations. Thus until 1829, the history of First Church is also the history of First Parish.

The present-day First Church has researched and published importantly on this joint history related to slavery and is an excellent starting point for learning about First Parish and slavery. See the First Church webpage, Owning Our History, for multiple linked resources including the following papers: 

FIRST PARISH

The Horrible Haunting Hidden History, a play written by First Parish in Cambridge member and founder of Cambridge Vintage Mystery Theatre, Siobhan Bredin, was performed at the church on October 22, 2023. The play deals with the history of enslavement in Cambridge and at Harvard, including bay William Brattle, the seventh minister of First Parish in Cambridge and a slaveholder. You can read more about the play, access the program, and read the script at the Cambridge Vintage Mystery Theatre website.

“Remember, Reckon, Repair,” a First Parish Worship Service Sermon by Rev. Rob Hardies, February 12, 2023.

CICELY, OLD CAMBRIDGE BURIAL GROUND

Nicole Saffold Maskiell is a writer, storyteller, and historian. Her extensive research on the enslaved young woman, Cicely, who is buried in the Old Cambridge Burial Ground next to First Parish, is published in the article: Here Lyes the Body of Cicely Negro: Enslaved Women in Colonial Cambridge and the Making of New England History, The New England Quarterly (June 2022) 95 (2): 115-1154.

See also Nicole Saffold Maskiell’s book, Bound By Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry (Cornell University Press, 2022). Clink here for Nicole Maskiell’s personal website and here for her University of South Carolina, Columbia, website.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY and FIRST PARISH

In 2019, Harvard University President Larry Bacow established the Presidential Initiative on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery which began as an effort to uncover the University’s connections to slavery. In April 2022, the University released the Report of the Presidential Committee on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery. This Harvard website links to multiple information sites, publications, and recorded events related to Harvard and slavery.

This Harvard Report identifies enslavers, enslaved people, and slavery supporters affiliated with both First Parish (named First Church until 1829) and Harvard University. First Church Ministers William Brattle (1696-1717) and Nathaniel Appleton (1717-1783) were enslavers (Report page 64). Among prominent First Parish members and ministers who perpetuated white supremacy were Francis Greenwood Peabody, First Parish Unitarian minister (1874-1880) and professor at Harvard Divinity School (see Report pages 49, 64, and 87-88) and devoted congregation member, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the first President of Radcliffe College (see Report pages 22, 34, 36-38, and 51).

CHRIST CHURCH

See Christ Church, Legacies of Slavery at Christ Church Cambridge, HERE LIES DARBY VASSALL, 11 minute video, 2022.

CAMBRIDGE and NEARBY

Charles Sullivan, Slavery in Cambridge, Cambridge Historical Commission. Presentation to the Slave Legacy History Coalition, October 12, 2022. (Starts at 2:47)

Charles Sullivan, Slavery and its Aftermath in Cambridge, Cambridge Historical Commission, January 13, 2021. This PDF includes slides in the (above) October 12, 2022, plus slides of more recent materials and information related to African Americans in Cambridge from slavery to the present time.

The Slave Legacy History Coalition is a consortium of individuals, organizations, and institutions engaged in the preservation of the history of enslaved people in Cambridge, Boston communities and beyond. The Slave Legacy History Coalition was established in the fall of 2021 by the Lloyd Family who are descendants of Tony, Cuba, and Darby Vassall, whose enslavers endowed the first law professorships at Harvard University, which eventually became Harvard Law School” (from the SLHC website). 

Questions/Suggestions? Contact Charlene Galarneau