AT CASEY FARM Acknowledging the Institution of Slavery

by JANE HENNEDY Site Manager, Southern Rhode Island

From its founding in 1663 until 2020, Rhode Island's official name was the "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." Among those "plantations" - defined historically as large agricultural tracts that used slave labor to grow produce for profit - was Casey Farm in Saunderstown.

The land now called Rhode Island is the homeland of the Narragansett, Wampanoag, Niantic, and Nipmuc people. Casey Farm is located on the homeland of the Narragansett people. Early colonizers soon found that the rocky soil of this region was not the best for raising crops, so they turned to raising livestock and to the sea to make a living. By 1750, the date we believe the farmhouse was built, 19 percent of those in the Casey Farm region were enslaved people of African and Indigenous descent - far more than in the rest of the state and any other northern colony. Most Rhode Island plantations, including Casey Farm, produced wool, mutton, and cheese, which were exported through the key city of Newport, principally to the Caribbean. Besides supporting themselves, slaveholders in the West Indies used Rhode Island products to feed and clothe the people they enslaved on sugar plantations. People in bondage who were forced to labor on farms, in households, and in businesses formed the backbone of Rhode Island’s economy.

Taking a step toward a more equitable and truthful telling of the history of the lands and properties it stewards, last year on Juneteenth (the federal holiday enacted in 2021 to mark the effective end of slavery in the United States on June 19, 1865), Historic New England dedicated a Rhode Island Slave History Medallion (RISHM) at Casey Farm. The medallion honors the peoples whom European colonialism made victims of centuries of oppression, dispossession, and enslavement to ensure the longterm sustainability of the farm and the profits of their subjugators. The medallion stands as a marker of Historic New England’s long overdue efforts to acknowledge these facts in ways more tangible and lasting than gallery labels or site tours.

RISHM founder and CEO Charles Roberts says RISHM was formed in 2017 "to raise public awareness of Rhode Island's dominant role in the institution of slavery, to commemorate the lives of the enslaved, and open a dialogue for racial understanding and healing."

Historic New England began a partnership with our neighbors at the Narrow River Preservation Association who believed that Casey Farm, as the only intact former plantation and one that is open to the public, should be the site of a Rhode Island Slave History Medallion. The marker would lead people to RISHM’s website (rishm.org) to discover as much information as we can provide about the history of slavery associated with the property and the region. We learned that we needed to ground our interpretation with more in-depth research.

We knew that English colonizers initially forced Indigenous people into slavery when they went to war against the Pequot and then the Wampanoag and Narragansett peoples between the 1630s and 1670s; enslavement was the price of their defeat. In the eighteenth century, Newport became the major importation center and auction block in the country for human cargo from Africa. The docks of Newport were where Silas Casey (1734–1814) purchased three enslaved Africans. They were called Ezekiel, Walter, and Moses.

Through research in Historic New England’s archives and many other sources, an expanded story emerged. Hannah Francis, a research scholar in our Recovering New England Voices initiative, found more facts and provided context for the lives of these three men. She found that the legacy of enslavement by the family that owned Casey Farm extended through the centuries and controlled the lives of fifteen people. Four were named in records: Phillis, Peter, and Betty and her baby, Jeffrey.

Casey Farm’s Rhode Island Slave History Medallion is dedicated to Ezekiel, Walter, Moses, Phillis, Peter, Betty, and Jeffrey. They were bonded to the Morey/Coggeshall/ Casey family, along with numerous unnamed and unrecorded people who worked these lands. We still benefit from the labor forced from them, labor tied to racism and oppression, even as we strive to enlighten ourselves and our visitors and work toward inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility within and through Historic New England. Partnering with Black, Indigenous, and other people of color via organizations and individuals, we are on a journey toward decolonizing our museum gallery and outdoor spaces.

With guidance from our partner nonprofits, we made connections with speakers, performers, and food providers to plan last year’s Juneteenth celebration that acknowledged the practice of slavery and commemorated the lives of those held in bondage. The medallion was cast in bronze and is set in a granite post on Casey Farm’s front lawn. Every visitor who comes for a tour, for a children’s education program, for the farmers market, or most any other reason, sees the marker, bringing facts to light about all the people whose lives contributed to the survival and success of this place, and our research continues to recover even more of this history.

ABOVE The QR code leads to RISHM’s website with the most complete information we can supply about the lives of enslaved people of color at Casey Farm. RIGHT