Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
Ten Hills Farm, the governor's estate at the start of Massachusetts slavery
1631
Somerville, Massachusetts
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The General Court granted Governor John Winthrop 600 acres along the Mystic River in 1631 and he named the place Ten Hills for the hillocks on it. Winthrop ordered Pequot captives from the 1637 war sold into slavery in the West Indies aboard the ship Desire, and when the Desire came back in February 1638 it carried the first enslaved Africans brought into the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Native and African people were held in bondage on this farm, and its land later passed to the Royall family, whose slave quarters still stand just over the line in Medford. The hills were cut down for fill and the ground is a residential neighbourhood beside Assembly Square.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: approximate area
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