By Reuben Downey
This is the first entry in a series of blog posts examining the history of SELT’s lands. The research project began in 2021 with deep dives undertaken by a committee of volunteers, who pored over historical deeds and probate records to unearth connections between Black and Indigenous individuals and the lands SELT owns. In 2025, UNH student Reuben Downey joined SELT to continue this work. Learn more about The Conservation Chronicle here.
The southeastern region of New Hampshire was the first founded area of the state, with many of the first settlements surrounding waterways. The regions that make up Rockingham County today played an integral role in trade within the colony of New Hampshire.
This land, being rich in resources and accessible to major waterways such as the Piscataqua River and Atlantic Ocean, made settlement here prosperous. To settlers, this land was a new frontier, layered with the beauty of its nature and untold opportunities, the seacoast region was the heart of New Hampshire’s trade and industry.
When looking at a map, the towns we now know as Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter and Hampton might seem unrecognizable to most, with different names and much different boundaries. Though our state’s motto of “Live Free or Die” is a powerful sentiment which goes back to the Revolutionary War period and rings true with today’s New Hampshire residents, there were many people who lived in New Hampshire who did not have the option to live free.
As is the case with much of this country’s colonial history, the continued success of New Hampshire’s settlements is undeniably tied to a history of enslavement. The first enslaved West Africans were taken to Portsmouth by 1645, with Portsmouth and its nearby towns holding most of the population of both free and enslaved Black people.1
The institution of slavery in the North, especially within the first thirteen colonies, was much different than the large-scale agricultural labor which would become associated with slavery in the southern states. By the 18th century within the Northeast, the population of enslaved people was still significantly much lower than that of the south, with households that engaged in slavery only having two to three enslaved individuals rather than the common idea of slavery someone might think when referring to the Antebellum South.
Even in the South, a hundred years later in 1860, almost half of all plantations had between twenty to thirty enslaved people, larger plantations held even more, with the wealthiest and largest of these operations forcing the labor of hundreds.2
In the North, the enslaved populations were typically larger within port cities and their nearby towns, such as those within the current Rockingham County, due to the need for skilled trade and seaport labor. Even within the highest rates of slavery in the South in the years before the Civil War, the North’s enslaved population never reached over five percent of the overall population.3 This smaller population does not make the impact of slavery within the North any less significant, however.
SELT believes that all people should have equal access to land and, therefore, the histories of all people are essential in its care.
While the history of enslavement here is not as widely known as that in the South, primarily due to differences in scale, understanding the impact of free and enslaved Black voices on the culture of New Hampshire and the entirety of New England is essential to tell the full history of these places SELT now manages. With inconsistent records of enslavement, paired with the natural passage of time, primary resources on the topic are scarce, and it is difficult to follow the exact locations and lives of these people.
SELT believes that all people should have equal access to land and, therefore, the histories of all people are essential in its care. With the preservation and discussion of these stories, SELT hopes to engage the public with histories they may not have seen or heard about. Through these blog posts, I hope that the research that the volunteers of SELT and I have done can generate further interest into the histories of the lands and people of New Hampshire.
Sources:
1) https://www.seacoastnh.com/first-blacks-of-portsmouth-part-1/?start=1
2) https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/enslavement/text3/text3read.htm#_ednref2
3) https://userpages.umbc.edu/~bouton/History407/SlaveStats.htm
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