Mapping Congregants of Color at Old South Church

At the Old South Meeting House, people met, connected, and built relationships.

Suppose that you are an 18th-century Bostonian. Your race and class would have determined where you sat in public spaces. The pew assignments at Old South show us the race and class hierarchy of the revolutionary era.

• Wealthy White congregants sat in the pews they rented on the main floor.
• Working class White congregants would sit in the second floor balcony.
• Congregants of color were expected to sit in the third floor balcony.

By being aware of space, we can better understand history because it allows us to put ourselves in other people's shoes. It can also help us understand the social spaces we occupy today.

Throughout the 18th century, over 120 congregants of color were baptized or married at Old South. Keep scrolling to explore the life of one of Old South's congregants and learn more about the revolutionary era through his story.

Scipio was baptized (as an adult) on October 11, 1741 at Old South Meeting House.

According to church records, Scipio was enslaved by John Osborne. He lived at Osborne's house on Milk Street, somewhere along the block highlighted in blue, right down the street from Old South.

Given how close he lived to Old South, the church was likely an important place where Scipio built community. Old South is likely where he met his wife, Sylvia.

We don’t know much about what his daily life looked like, but as an enslaved person, Scipio would have had limited control over his own life.

Scipio and Sylvia married August 27, 1741. Marriage for love was one of the ways people of color could assert their agency.

Mapping where Scipio and Sylvia lived reveals the physical distance that separated them. They were enslaved by different families, so they had to continue living apart, even after marriage.

Their children were also enslaved by Sylvia's enslaver, Edmund Quincy, and thus lived at his house. These sad realities have reinforced the familial and communal significance of Old South.

Old South was one of the important places where their family could gather together. Scipio and Sylvia chose to baptize their children, Charles, Joseph, Isaac, Nancy, Eunice, and Tabitha at Old South between 1741 and 1750.

Besides to the physical distance that families like Scipio's faced, they also lived under the threat of sale. Until 1783, when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, enslavers had right to sell those they enslaved. This could separate families by even greater distances.

In 1757, Edmund Qunicy, the enslaver of Sylvia and her children, declared bankruptcy.

On January 27, 1758, an advertisement appeared in the Boston Newsletter.

Quincy announced that he was holding an auction to sell his household furniture along with:

“one Negro Man, one Negro Woman and 3 Negro girls.”

The auction was held across town from Quincy's house, at the house of Cord Cordis near Sudbury Street. Sylvia and her children were sold to an unknown enslaver who likely lived outside of Boston.

• What do you imagine the long journey to the auction site was like for Sylvia?
• How might she and her young children have felt the moment of being sold?

We know little about what happened to Sylvia and her children after the sale.

We can only imagine the pain Scipio endured. This tragic event may have drawn him toward the idea of seizing freedom for himself.

We don't know how Scipio was freed or if he freed himself, but just three years later, in 1761, he shows up in records as a free man.

His determination to free his family led him to sue white men several times. In one case, Scipio sued Estes How, in 1770, for money How owed him to purchase his daughter's freedom.

By 1767, Scipio had purchased his daughter, Eunice, to free her from enslavement. However, freedom did not guarantee safety at this time, especially for women of color. To ensure his daughter's safety, Scipio provided lodgings for Eunice at Captain Hopestill Foster's house.

During this time, Scipio rented a house from Foster in the South End of Boston and worked manual labor jobs for the city. Though he lived farther away from Old South, his commitment to the church was not diminished.

In April of 1772, Scipio became a full member of Old South Church. In the record of his admittance, he is listed as

“a free Negro”

Scipio's biological family was forever altered by the auction of his wife and several of his children. Remaining in Boston, he began to rebuild a communal family by subletting his home to "warnees."

Warnees were individuals who were not from Boston who were "warned" by the Boston Selectmen that the town of Boston would not offer them poor relief should they need it. By taking in warnees, Scipio created a safe space similar to the Old South Church that welcomed people of all backgrounds.

Scipio's story is lost to us after the mid 1770s. It is not clear when, where, or how he died or where he is buried. Yet, it is important to remember that even in the absence of records, people of color like Scipio were active members of revolutionary Boston society.