Robert

Robert was a Black man referred to as “Robert Negro” in two cases tried in the Inferior Court session at Northampton on November 10, 1767. These records refer to Robert as a laborer by profession who lived in Hadley, MA.

In the first case, Robert was accused of breaking and entering into John Strickland’s house on October 25, 1767. Also in residence in the house were John Clark, his wife (unnamed in the record), and his daughter, Mary Clark. Once in the house, Robert was accused of “being in the same house with the intent to commit fornication with and have carnal knowledge of the said Mary Clark then being in Bed in the said house.” Robert was not charged by Strickland or the Clarks, but by the representatives of the Crown’s government in Massachusetts (Hampshire Council of Governments, Inferior Court of Common Pleas, vol. 10, p. 69).

In the second case, Robert was charged with an almost identical offense. This charge stated that on October 24, 1767, he broke into a “mansion house” in Hadley belonging to Charles Phelps. In the house were Charles Phelps Jr., Dorothy Phelps, and Abigail Phelps. The charge stated that Robert entered the house “with intent to commit fornication with and have carnal knowledge of the body of the said Dorothy and the said Abigail” (Hampshire Council of Governments, Inferior Court of Common Pleas, vol. 10, p. 69–70).

By the time of the trial, Robert had been imprisoned in Springfield and was brought to Northampton for the trial. He was prosecuted by John Worthington, the King’s counsel.

In both cases, Robert said that he would “not contend,” which appears to mean that he would not contest the charges. He was sentenced to be whipped 10 lashes (the verdict specifies that they be “laid on well”) for each offense, and that he pay considerable court costs: £3 17s 11p in the first case, and £3 10s 11p. According to the U.K. National Archives currency converter, the first fine would have been the equivalent of $460, and the second would have been the equivalent of $419, for a total of $859 in 2022 currency. The National Archives converter also states that, combined, the fees would be the equivalent of 43 days’ labor. This is a large fine, but is not unprecedented for cases of theft or assault, which often incurred heavy fines.

With a court record that includes so little testimony, it is hard to pin down exactly what events prompted the case. One point of interest is that Robert was charged with breaking into the houses and having an intent to “have carnal knowledge of” one or more female occupants, but is not charged with assault or rape. One explanation for this could be that he was in fact invited by the female occupants. If this were the case, the charges of breaking and entering could relate to the fact that the home did not belong to the women in question, and that the homeowners did not give Robert permission to be there. However, taking the record at face value, it is also possible that it was a break-in, and Robert was caught before he committed assault, but that he made some kind of statement later that revealed his intentions on entering the house. Even if he did break into the house, it is also possible that he did not intend to assault its occupants, and that intention was something that the people who charged him assumed about him.

It is worth considering the privilege involved in this story. The Phelps family was one of the most prominent in Hadley, living, as the record states, in a “mansion house.” Their power could have come into play at several points. If Robert was, in fact, an invited guest of either Dorothy or Abigail Phelps, then adding the breaking and entering charge could be less about the actual ownership of the house, and more about shielding the reputation of Dorothy and Abigail at the request of Charles. If Robert was not invited in, embroidering a more sinister intention onto a break-in at a wealthy family’s home could also be a way to impose a more severe punishment and satisfy that family. Though some theft cases were punished with corporal punishment, not all were. They could have simply fined Robert, but adding a sexual-assault motivation made it much more likely that a fine would not be considered sufficient. 

A coincidence implied by the court records is that Robert would have been in the courthouse at the same time as another subject of this research project, Philemon Lee. One of Lee’s cases for refusing to leave Northampton was tried in the same court session directly after Robert’s cases, so it is probable that the two men would have seen each other. However, they would be exchanging places, with Robert coming from jail, and Lee leaving to go to jail.