Rose Binney

Rose Binney was born in the early to mid 1730s. She may have been born in West Africa, enslaved there, and taken to America. This was the version of events presented by Electa Jones, in Stockbridge, Past and Present, her 19th-century history of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Jones wrote that “When a child,” Binney was captured “as she was getting water from a spring.”

In Northampton, Binney was enslaved by the minister Jonathan Edwards, and began a relationship with Joab Binney, who was enslaved by Jonathan Hunt III. In 1750, Edwards was removed from his position as minister of Northampton. Later that year, or perhaps the following year, Edwards and his household, including enslaved Rose Binney, moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. 

In 1751, Rose and Joab Binney were married by Jonathan Edwards (Kenneth Minkema, “Jonathan Edwards’ Defense of Slavery”). Though we do not know the exact date when Rose gained her freedom, it seems that it was during the early 1750s, since she was not listed in the valuations of Edwards’ property in 1753. Some have conjectured that Rose and Joab were the parents of Titus, a boy whom Edwards enslaved in the 1750s and would have been born during this period. However, Titus was actually born in Connecticut and sold to Edwards as a child. 

Between the years 1761 and 1771 Joab Binney and Rose Binney had four daughters who died in infancy, and one daughter who lived, named Tamar. All were born in Stockbridge. In 1782, the Binney’s next daughter, Clamira, was baptized.

In the 1770s, Rose Binney had a religious conversion experience and joined a Stockbridge church. Later, in 1797, Jonathan Edwards’ successor as minister in Stockbridge, Dr. Stephen West, wrote about Binney’s conversion. West’s article gives a relatively lengthy and personal account of Rose Binney’s life, but it is important not to view it as objective, not least because it was not written in her own voice. It was written apparently many years after the fact, and West had an interest in portraying his own power as a minister and God’s power as a converter. 

It is evident that West wrote from his own inherent biases because he wrote dialogue for Binney with words spelled phonetically and in broken English, which should not be assumed to be her actual words. Although it could mean that Binney spoke with an accent, it could just as easily be an expression of racism and a belief that she was intellectually inferior. Since Binney had been in the U.S. for at least 25 years at this point, it is probable that the broken English at least is entirely fabricated, and, as such, we will paraphrase West’s content here as opposed to using actual quotes.

West begins his account at the funeral of Binney’s fourth child who died in infancy. While there, he entered into a dialogue with her about joining the church. He made her promise that if he guessed correctly why she wanted to join, she would confirm it. He then went on to tell her that he knew she wanted to join the church so that God would stop being angry with her, since his anger with her was the reason her children had died. West stated that Binney agreed with his explanation, and their dialogue continued over the coming days and weeks. The Rose Binney who appears in the article is clearly in severe emotional distress. She recounts sobbing for no reason, regular episodes of heavy sleep she can’t control, staying up all night agitated because she fears if she goes to sleep she will die and go to hell, and feeling as though she cannot go on living. She refers to herself as “vile,” “poor,” and “wicked.” 

West stated that after they had been talking for some time, Binney told him that she had had a religious conversion experience while she was milking a cow—she saw the milk and her surroundings illuminated by God’s light. After her conversion experience she was admitted as a member of the church and remained so until her death. West stated that on their last visit she told him that she did not know if she was going to heaven.

It is hard to know what is real and what is fabricated in this story. The emotional outbursts and feelings of unworthiness that West attributes to Binney are standard tropes of a conversion narrative. This does not necessarily mean that they are untrue: West may have been attracted to Binney’s story as a subject because of how her feelings fit with the narrative he was trying to create. As such, it is worth looking at the broad strokes of how West reports that Binney felt, keeping in mind that these feelings likely have been embellished. The biggest through lines for Binney are distress, sadness, and self-loathing. 

One possibility worth considering is that West is giving an accurate portrayal of Rose Binney’s emotional state as she described it to him, but interpreting it to serve his own purposes. West remembered going to the aforementioned funeral hoping that Binney’s daughter’s death would make her see God’s power and be interested in being baptized. He was disappointed when talking to her, since he only saw the “strong workings of maternal affection.” However, this is the last point in the narrative when he mentions her daughters’ deaths. He ascribes every future instance of emotional turmoil to her distress about her relationship with God. We may never know how much of what West describes is true, but it is clear that West had a poor understanding of his subject. Rose Binney was a formerly enslaved woman, taken from her own family as a child, who had then lost four children, the majority of her new family. Without considering her, and viewing her through a racist lens, he read a religious narrative onto what was happening in front of him.

Joab Binney died in 1783, shortly after the birth of Rose and Joab’s last child, Clamira. Rose would remarry a man with the surname Salter, but she would continue to live on the farm she shared with Joab for at least the next 20 years.

There are multiple accounts of Binney’s death. West wrote that she died before his published account in 1797. However, census records have a “Rose Salter” dying in 1822, at 78 years old. This could be a different person or her age could have been recorded incorrectly.