The first enslaved African American in Waterbury is believed to have arrived sometime around 1730, when Deacon Thomas Clark, a storekeeper and the town clerk and town treasurer, purchased a young boy named Mingo and brought him to Waterbury. There were at least two other African Americans in Waterbury in the 1730s: Lewis and Filis are included in Capt. William Hickcox’s estate inventory of 1737.

Census Data

Records of the people enslaved in Waterbury during the eighteenth century are scarce. The 1756 Connecticut census recorded 27 African Americans living in Waterbury, representing just under 2% of the town’s population. When the census was taken again in 1774, there were 34 African Americans and 4 Native Americans in Waterbury, a mere 1% of the town’s population. The two colonial census reports did not distinguish free from enslaved, but the first federal census, taken in 1790, reported 14 free African Americans and 10 enslaved. The number of slaves in Waterbury dropped from seven people in 1800 to only one, a woman named Phyllis, in 1810. She was given her freedom soon afterwards.

Contracts

Slaves were often promised to be freed at a future date, if they performed their services faithfully. Rev. Southmayd wrote in his will, probably in the 1750s, that his two slaves, Sampson and Fillis, were to be given their freedom if they were “faithful, careful and industrious” in helping to raise his grandchildren. In 1752, Capt. Samuel Hickcox indentured Martin Molotts, the son of his slave Larance, when he was four years old; the contract declared that Martin would be free upon reaching his 24th birthday. A woman named Rhoda Bristol, who became an indentured servant when she was a young woman, was sold in 1751 as a "slave for life" by the Waterbury man she worked for.

Restrictions

Many Waterbury slaves were considered to be members of the family and were sometimes baptized along with the family’s children, but they were not treated as equals. Colonial laws placed a curfew of 9 p.m. on slaves. Penalties for breaking the curfew included a whipping for the slave and a fine for the slave owner. Free and enslaved African Americans were restricted from leaving the boundaries of their towns without a pass or ticket.

Work

Slave owners often hired out their slaves to work for other people. Waterbury was primarily a farming community in the eighteenth century. Enslaved men and boys worked as farm laborers, while women and girls were household servants. On some occasions, the enslaved were allowed to sweep the church or ring the school bell, tasks that were considered to be prestigious by Waterbury's white residents.

Community

In some cases, as with Fortune and Dinah, a husband and wife would be enslaved in one household and would raise their children together. In many other cases, however, there was only one person enslaved within a Waterbury household. Mingo is believed to have had a wife and children, but so far it appears that he lived alone within the Clark household. Waterbury’s African Americans, both free and enslaved, knew one another and were allowed to form friendships with one another and with the white community. Cuff Capeny, a free African American, wrote his will in 1777 and left money for two enslaved African Americans, Silence and Timothy, and personal items for two white men.

Westbury

In the section of Waterbury known as Westbury (now the town of Watertown), several African Americans who had gained their freedom were able to purchase land, own and operate successful farms, and raise families. There does not appear to have been this same level of freedom in the center of Waterbury, where the land remained the possession of the original town settlers. Westbury also had a number of enslaved African Americans, primarily within a small handful of households.