Collect Day #12, SECO
God Almighty, you made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace. We believe this to be true. We want peace and the dignity of freedom for each individual, as long as they exist first for us. Seco served you and humankind to make our country free. How could we have missed the fact that he lived as chattel, instead, always more bound than free? Would we make a different decision now? Would we seek peace for Seco that is more in accordance with your gracious will? O, by the ever-living power of your Holy Spirit, may that be so. Amen
DAY #12, February 27, 2018
Kingston & Hopkinton
SECO
(C. 1747)
Rev. Deborah Knowlton
It is not often that an historical record remains of the sale and purchase of a human being, especially when the details of that record were dictated by a woman. This is the case with Seco Barnard (Sego) who appears first as owned by John Currier of Kingston in the late 1750s. It is uncertain how long John Currier may have owned Seco, but in his 1757 will, John bequeathed Seco to his wife, Ruth, along with half of his house, the barn and his extensive property and assorted farm animals.
Twenty years later, Ruth sells Seco for the sum of 27 pounds to Joseph Barnard of Hopkinton. She delivers Seco, “aged about 30 years… to Joseph and his heirs and assigns forever” by way of a hand-written deed upon which she made her mark in the presence of witnesses, Elijah Clough and Phebe Currier, her daughter-in-law.
Joseph Barnard, was a native of Amesbury, Mass., who moved to Hopkinton in 1766. Since Joseph’s father and John Currier’s father were both influential men in the history of Amesbury, the sale of Seco could have been understood as an “exchange of goods” between friends – but only by those doing the exchange. Joseph was an industrious man who was said to have worked tirelessly to improve his homestead and Seco was also said to have been quite knowledgeable in husbandry. It is likely Seco would have done a great deal of manual labor on such an estate.But it appears that with the sale of Seco to Joseph occurring at the time of the Revolutionary War, Seco first enlisted and served as a private. Sometime after his military duty, in 1790, Joseph Barnard freed Seco. Hopkinton history records that Seco moved south, into Massachusetts, where he met and married a woman named Phillis.
Seco and his wife apparently moved back to Poplin (today known as Fremont) but like so many other freed slaves, they slipped into poverty and were warned out of Poplin. The town sheriff would have given them notice when they had stayed the allowed numbers of days as set by the town, and they would have been obliged to move to a new setting. So, Seco, Phillis and Phillip, perhaps a son, appear next on the pauper rolls of Kingston. There is included in Hopkinton’s history the story of Seco meeting up with Joseph Barnard in Amesbury after Seco had been freed. Seco earnestly desired that Joseph take him back with him (likely as an employee, now that Seco was freed). But, Joseph Barnard “resisted, not feeling at liberty to comply.”
There is no record of Seco’s death, nor of any pension received for his military duty. What does remain is the record of his being bought and sold at the hands of both men and women, who then did not feel at liberty to employ him but did feel at liberty to rebuff him, warn him out of town and do little to alleviate impoverishment until long after his death, when “county farms” were created to deal with the issue of social welfare.
