Quock Walker Day celebrates the end of slavery in Massachusetts

“The story itself is of a man who wanted his freedom and used the legal process to get it,” said Michael Powell, a Jamaica Plain resident who took part in the festivities in Lexington. “It’s incredible.”

The first record of Walker appears in 1754, when he was an infant and was sold along with his parents to James Caldwell, who owned a farm in what was known as Rutland Parish, according to a proclamation signed Monday by Gov. Maura Healey.

Caldwell died in 1763, and his widow later remarried. Her new husband, Nathaniel Jennison, enslaved Walker on his farm in Barre. Caldwell had previously promised to free Walker when he turned 25, but Jennison failed to honor the promise made by the previous enslaver, the proclamation said.

In 1781, Walker broke free and left Jennison’s farm for another farm owned by the Caldwell brothers, who gave him paid work. But Jennison pursued Walker, captured him, and beat him.

Three court proceedings followed, resulting in decisions finding Walker a free man and convicting Jennison of felonious assault and battery.

Instructing the jury in the assault case against Walker, Cushing said that the Massachusetts Constitution passed in 1780 had abolished slavery.

“The idea of ​​slavery is incompatible with our very conduct and Constitution,” Cushing told the jury, according to the proclamation.

The celebration in Lexington began Saturday outside Bowman Elementary School, where the Lexington Black Citizens Association organized a walk through Dunback Meadow.

Sean Osborne, a historian and founder of the association, told Walker’s story to the hikers before they set out.

In an interview, Osborne said the walk was designed to give participants a chance to reflect on Walker’s 1781 journey from the Jennison farm to the farm run by the Caldwell family, a distance of about five miles. As a child, Walker had been enslaved by the Caldwells, but now paid work awaited him. Still, the Caldwells had no history of employing a black person, Osborne said.

“There is a lot of faith in that path. One thinks of doubts and hope,” he said. “As we know, hope triumphed.”

Zine Magubane, a sociology professor at Boston College, walked with her sister, Bongi, who traveled from Hartford for Walker’s events.

Magubane said Walker’s story is emblematic of the contradictions embedded in Massachusetts’s and the nation’s history. While Massachusetts enacted a constitution abolishing slavery, it was the first colony to legalize the practice.

“It’s a complicated story,” she said. “I think what Quock’s story shows is that slavery was integral to the New England economy. It was an integral part of history and it was really an enslaved person who made them live up to those revolutionary ideals.”

At a later celebration at Lexington’s First Parish, state Rep. Michelle Ciccolo also called attention to the state’s complicated history with slavery.

A draft of the Massachusetts Constitution proposed by the Legislature in 1778 Ciccolo said the proposal would have recognized slavery as a legal institution and excluded free African Americans from voting. “I find that totally and utterly appalling,” he said. “But what gives me a little hope is that when it was put before the voters of Massachusetts, we rejected it.”

Sheila Lawrence went on the hike and attended the church service with her husband, children and nephew. She called Walker’s story of emancipation inspiring. “No one else had done it,” she said. “As a mother, I hope I can instill in my children some of that energy and that drive to make the world a better place.”

You can contact Laura Crimaldi at [email protected]. Follow her @lauracrimaldi.