Caesar Negro.
Caesar Negro was one of the former slaves that fought in the revolutionary war for Suffield. He was a part of the 4th regiment and fought for the term of 3 years. His owners last name is suggested to be Clark, because in the application for his pension it states “Negro or Clark” as the last name.
Caesar Negro (Clark) Application for pension.
Excerpt from “History of a Town” revolutionary war veterans.
Did Titus Kent ever get his freedom? Did he apply for a pension?
Or did he in fact die in the war?
Why did Jonathan Kent apply for Titus’s pension before he applied for his own?
Finally, we are wondering if Titus Kent’s wife, Rose Gay, applied for the pension. Further, we were hoping to learn more about Rose Gay, whom Reverend Ebenezer Gay purchased in the middle of the 1700s (before the Revolution) at Middletown from a Mr. Phillips.
During the first term of our American studies class, I have been looking into Titus Kent and his family. I have found a good deal of information about Titus Kent’s travel to the colonies, his time in the war as well as his life after the war, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions. I plan to take all of the information I have found so far in my research and determine what questions are yet to be answered. As I progress through the spring term leading up to the presentation, I plan on looking for the answers to many of these unanswered questions.
In my first HOT log I looked into how Titus Kent came to the colonies and at which port he arrived. From my research I found that he came on a Dutch ship, and these Dutch ships mostly came out of Ghana and Nigeria. Each country had its territories within the colonies, so it would be possible for me to research where the Dutch territories in the colonies were. These symbolized where the ships came from. Even if I find the Dutch territories ships did at times come into other countries ports which makes this whole search more challenging.
In my second HOT log I researched Titus Kent’s participation in the war and the aftermath. I know for sure that he did fight in the Revolutionary War, but I have yet to determine whether he did that to get his freedom or for his master, Captain Elihu Kent. I found documents proving that Titus Kent’s war pension was applied for by someone else, but does that mean Titus Kent didn’t get his freedom? Or did he get his freedom, just not his pension?
Since I have researched these questions I have found a lot of information about the Kent family, the owners, and the Kent family, the slaves.
Samuel Kent and Abiah Dwight had a son, Elihu Kent, who married Rebecca Kellog and had multiple children with her. One of them was Jonathan Kellogg Kent, the man who applied for Titus Kent’s pension. The interesting thing is that Jonathan Kent was also a soldier in the Revolutionary War. In addition to applying for Titus Kent’s pension he applied for his own pension, but he applied for Titus’s pension before he applied for his own. In the documents showing that Jonathan applied for Titus’s pension there is a suggestion that Titus actually died in the war.
It is evident that it states “to Titus Kent late a soldier”, something that can be interpreted as the fact that Titus Kent actually died in the war.
After looking more into Titus Kent’s son, Old Ti, who was born in 1787, I understood that Titus could not have died in the war. That makes me wonder: When did Titus Kent die?
Jonathan Kent applied for Titus’s pension in 1830, does that mean that Titus had just died? Or did he die a long time before, but they didn’t apply for his pension? Or could Titus not apply for his pension before because he was still enslaved?
During the first term of our American studies class, I have been looking into Titus Kent and his family. I have found a good deal of information about Titus Kent’s travel to the colonies, his time in the war as well as his life after the war, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions. I plan to take all of the information I have found so far in my research and determine what questions are yet to be answered. As I progress through the spring term leading up to the presentation, I plan on looking for the answers to many of these unanswered questions.
In my first HOT log I looked into how Titus Kent came to the colonies and at which port he arrived. From my research I found that he came on a Dutch ship, and these Dutch ships mostly came out of Ghana and Nigeria. Each country had its territories within the colonies, so it would be possible for me to research where the Dutch territories in the colonies were. These symbolized where the ships came from. Even if I find the Dutch territories ships did at times come into other countries ports which makes this whole search more challenging.
In my second HOT log I researched Titus Kent’s participation in the war and the aftermath. I know for sure that he did fight in the Revolutionary War, but I have yet to determine whether he did that to get
Document stating Titus Kent’s Revolutionary War status.
his freedom or for his master, Captain Elihu Kent. I found documents proving that Titus Kent’s war pension was applied for by someone else, but does that mean Titus Kent didn’t get his freedom? Or did he get his freedom, just not his pension?
In our American Studies class, we have been researching freedom and slavery in Suffield during 1774. We continue to find people, events and places linked to both topics.
In my previous research I was looking into Old Ti and his family and heritage. Since then I was looking into his life, specifically his father fighting in the Revolutionary War along with his owner Elihu Kent. I was also looking for proof of Titus Kent fighting in the war as well as him getting his freedom and his pension.
J Kent Seeking T Kent’s Pension
In my research I found, by looking through old war documents, monuments and lists, that Titus Kent did indeed fight in the Revolutionary War along with Elihu Kent and Elihu Kent Jr. I am still uncertain whether Titus got his freedom after the war, but I found records of applications for his pension. What is interesting about these documents is that they are not filed so that Titus himself can retrieve his pension. They are filed so that other people could get his pension.
As I was looking for documents proving Titus Kent’s position in the war, I came across Ancestry.com. This website contains original documents from the war, as well as containing information about the Kent family.
This also proves that Titus Kent did indeed survive fighting in the war. As for his freedom, it doesn’t mean he necessarily got his freedom.
As I progress in my research, I intend to research what happened to Titus Kent after the war? If he gets his freedom even though he didn’t get his pension? And who Jonathan Kent is in relation to Titus?
In our American studies class during the winter and spring of the class years 2016-2017, we are digging into the history of freedom and slavery in Connecticut and especially in Suffield during 1774. We are looking into how the Boston Tea Party, which happened in 1773, affected the rest of the states at that time, as well as how our state and town governments responded to it. I think learning about Old “Ti’s” family and about the Dutch ships they came on is crucial in understanding where these slaves may have originated from. The origin of these slaves and important facts about his family is vital in understanding the Colonial Slavery in Suffield. I think that learning about this history will help me understand more and helped me with my research into the Dutch slave ships.
It is important to understand how the transatlantic slave trade worked. “The majority of slaves transported to the New World were sold by Africans from central and western parts of Africa to European slave traders” (1). Slavery started way before the transatlantic slave trade. African tribes would sell slaves within the tribes. From my experiences in Cape Coast and Ghana, I’ve learned about the slave trade within tribes. Although this is no longer common, there is still slavery where children are sold to fishermen to be slaves. When the Europeans came to the central and western Africa, they opened slave castles whereof the slave trade would be conducted. After visiting one of the biggest slave castles in the coast in Ghana, the thing that stuck with me the most was “the door of no return.” this is the gate whereof many slaves departed through to get on their ship, and that most never return back through.
It is important to figure out whether Suffield was in a Dutch territory, because sometimes slave traders brought their slaves to other colonies. Even if we know that Titus came on a Dutch ship we need to figure out whether it was in a Dutch territory, and we can thereby trace where it came from.
Figure 1
(2).
From looking at figure 2 we can see the origin of many of the slaves that came on
Figure 2
Dutch ships. We can see that Dutch slaves mainly came from Ghana and Nigeria. From my research The Netherlands transported around 500,000 slaves during 2,000 journeys (3).
When it comes to the transatlantic slave trade, the Netherlands was not the biggest country involved, but the origin of the slaves they did export and how many is crucial in our research. I am looking into where the Dutch ships originated from, especially trying to find the origin of Titus, Old “Ti’s” father and mother, whom had a tattoo that suggested royalty. This could help us find information about where other slaves in Suffield are from, and find info about Mum Bett.
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