Belinda Sutton: The remarkable Ghanaian slave who won the first reparation petition, by Gift Luckson
Belinda Sutton (born 1713 in Africa), also known as Belinda Royall, was a woman born in what is now Ghana who was enslaved by the Royall family at the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts, USA.
Background
Additional details of Sutton’s family life are under ongoing research. Baptism records for a son Joseph, and a daughter Prine, appear in church records. Belinda was abandoned by Isaac Royall Jr. when he fled to Nova Scotia at the beginning of the American Revolution.
In Royall’s will, several enslaved people are listed, but Belinda was unique in his wishes.
Powerful Petition
In February 1783, Sutton presented a petition to the Massachusetts General Court requesting a pension from the proceeds of her enslaver’s estate.
The vivid petition text was crafted to describe Belinda’s kidnapping in Africa and subsequent hardships and to condemn the practice of slavery. Some scholars suggest that she was assisted by Prince Hall, a local free African-American anti-slavery activist of the Revolutionary War era.
READ ALSO: The legacy of Eliza Moore, one of America’s last survivors of slavery, by Gift Luckson
Other scholars point to the wider Black community and the collective knowledge of prior legal cases in the Commonwealth.
The first petition request suggests that Sutton was the major supporter of her daughter.
Victory and Pension
As a result of this petition, an annual pension of fifteen pounds and twelve shillings was awarded to her, and approved by John Hancock.
This pension has been cited as one of the first cases of reparation for slavery and the slave trade.
In the 1788 petition, she is referred to as a “widow” and uses the last name Sutton. Subsequent petitions to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts indicate that after two initial payments, the pension payments were not forthcoming.
She continued to petition for the back payments until a final filing in 1793. Later, legal documents refer to the Royall servants’ deaths having transpired, but when and under what circumstances remain unknown at this time.
Legacy
Belinda’s petition was reprinted in 1787 with her authorship credited, by publisher Mathew Carey, accompanied by an anti-slavery essay “Address to the Heart, on the Subject of American Slavery” in the publication The American Museum.
In 1832, William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator referenced “Balinda” and her petition in an article called “Capacity of Blacks”.
In her 1980 poem “Belinda’s Petition,” Rita Dove gives voice to a woman first enslaved at age 12: “Lately your Countrymen have severed/the Binds of Tyranny,” she says, adding simply, “I would hope you / would consider the Same for me.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay “The Case for Reparations” in 2014 called back to Belinda’s story and petition.
Honour by Harvard
In 2022, Harvard Law School inaugurated a Belinda Sutton Distinguished Lecture series and conferences honouring the work of Belinda Sutton and other enslaved people who contributed to Harvard University’s establishment.
The series is organised by Guy-Uriel E. Charles, director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.
The first lecture was delivered by Professor Martha S. Jones, entitled “What’s So Hard about Hard Histories?” Harvard Law School has also agreed to provide support for the Isaac Royall House and Slave Quarters and to collaborate on research and education programmes.
READ ALSO: Outlasting Slavery: How George Freeman Bragg Jr. became a force for racial justice, by Gift Luckson
A Black History Month programme in 2023, with a theme of Black Resistance, celebrated Sutton’s legacy. “Remembering Belinda Sutton: Resistance, Activism, and Reparations” at the Royall House and Slave Quarters consisting of a discussion of the 1783 petition, a musical performance, and a discussion of “Belinda Sutton and Black Women’s Radical Activism in 18th Century Massachusetts”.
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