Dinah
Dinah is part of one of the most descriptive records referring to an enslaved person in Northampton. She appears in the will and probate records of Joseph and Mercy Bartlett. However, there is little record of her outside of those documents, so much of what can be gleaned of her life is through inference.
Dinah was enslaved by Joseph and Mercy Bartlett. She was baptized on June 4, 1738 (First Church of Christ Records). She was given her freedom in Joseph Bartlett’s will of 1754, which referred to her as a “Negro woman.” After she gained her freedom at Joseph Bartlett’s death in 1755, she was employed by Mercy Bartlett, who survived her husband and later left Dinah property in her own will.
We can learn more about Dinah’s life by examining these documents. In his will, Bartlett freed her and left her four pounds, to be paid two years after his death if she was not yet married. If she was married in the two years after his death, she was to be given the equivalent of four pounds and thirteen shillings in household utensils on her wedding day (Probate Record of Joseph Bartlett).
The fact that Joseph Bartlett considered that Dinah could get married in the near future suggests that, in 1754, Dinah may have been considered of marriageable age. Commonly, this would be late teens through her 20s. She had been baptized 17 years earlier, so she was over 17 years old. However, if she was still of marriageable age, it implies that the Bartletts enslaved her as a child of 12 years old or less. It also suggests a potential range of birth years, the late 1720s and early 1730s. Alternately, Joseph Bartlett could have anticipated her marriage at any age if he knew she was in a relationship, or he could have simply left her the property out of a societal custom that linked female inheritance to marriage.
Upon her death in 1759, Mercy Bartlett left Dinah a collection of household property. Dinah inherited a stallion, a side saddle, a pillion (a cushion for a passenger on a horse), a bridle, a one-quart cup, a two-quart basin, one small pewter platter, one warming pan, one frying pan, one trammel, one small iron pot, one small iron kettle, one great wheel, one small wheel, one great chair, one small chair, cloth for a gown, four sheep, a gown, bed and bedding, three books (the New Testament, Watts Psalm Book, and On Help to Get Knowledge), and one glass bottle (Probate record of Mercy Bartlett).
Looked at as a whole, Dinah’s inheritance in Mercy Bartlett’s will is at least a partial set up for a household, with a horse (and accompanying accessories), a number of kitchen and dining goods, some furniture, some clothing, and a bed/bedding. Dinah and Peter, the other enslaved person freed in Joseph’s will, were two out of only three people mentioned in Mercy Bartlett’s will. The third person was Mary Kingsley, presumably a friend, to whom Mercy left the balance of the estate after what was given to Peter and Dinah. The only other entity who inherited anything was the church, to which Bartlett left one silver cup.
There are some differences between the inheritances that Mercy left to Dinah and Peter. Though both received high-value items, where they received comparable items Dinah’s appear to have had more value. She inherited a feather bed, while Peter’s was simply listed as a “bed.” She received a “Sorel Stallion” whereas he received a “one-eyed horse.” Dinah’s inheritance could suggest that Mercy Bartlett anticipated Dinah having her own household, or simply that she wanted to leave her employees items of value but not actual cash. The fact that Dinah was left items of higher value could indicate that Mercy Bartlett felt closer to her or had known her longer. However, the specific items left to Dinah seem more indicative of what Dinah’s life was like before Mercy Bartlett died than of what it would have been like after her former enslaver’s death. Dinah inherited two spinning wheels and a good deal of kitchen supplies, so it was probable that she was engaged in one or both of those tasks while living in the house and was inheriting items that she used every day.
The probate record attached to Mercy Bartlett’s will gives an additional detail about Dinah’s everyday life. Probate records were often grouped not by type of object, but by which room of the house the object was in. There were three bedsteads listed in the probate. It is apparent which belonged to Mercy Bartlet, since it is referred to as the “great” bedstead. The second bedstead, a “trundle,” is listed directly after it. As such, it appears that Dinah slept in the same room as Mercy Bartlett in a trundle bed, a not uncommon practice for a female domestic worker and her employer.
One last important fact about Dinah may already have become apparent from the list of her inheritance: Dinah knew how to read. Mercy Bartlett left her three books, and though they would have had some resale value, the fact that she chose specific titles to leave Dinah suggests that the content is what would have been important. Though there were some places in the country where teaching an enslaved person to read would have been against the law, it was legal in Massachusetts at this time. The books themselves also raise the issue of her piety. Dinah was baptized, and all of the books that Bartlett left her were on religious subjects, so it is possible that Dinah herself was devout. It is, of course, also possible that this was simply something that Bartlett was attempting to instill in her, or an attitude that Dinah adopted since she was living in what may have been a religious household.
We do not know much about Dinah’s life after the Bartletts were dead. However, Sylvester Judd refers to a record he found in a list of polls and estates for 1764, which stated “There seems to a Dinah also at Moses Kingsley’s—not a slave” (Judd manuscript, Northampton vol. 1, p. 65). Dinah was a common name for Black women at this time, so we cannot know if this is the same Dinah who was freed by Joseph Bartlett, but it is possible that after Mercy Bartlett’s death, she went to live or work in the home of Moses Kingsley.
Dinah died in July of 1772 (First Church of Christ Records).