02/24/2023
This Black History Month, we celebrate the work of Black pioneers who fearlessly dare to challenge injustice with the next installment in our series.
In 1783, Belinda Sutton, a formerly enslaved woman, petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to provide her an annual pension after her enslaver, Isaac Royall of Medford, fled the country. This petition helped bring the subject of reparations into public discourse.
Belinda’s petition chronicled her life from her childhood in contemporary Ghana to her enslaved life in Medford. It took a similar form to the earlier abolitionist petitions, and was likely written with the help of Prince Hall (learn about Hall’s appeals for abolition in our post from Juneteenth 2022).
After her first petition, the state granted Belinda an annual pension paid by the Royall estate. However, the estate stopped payments after the initial first year, and after Belinda petitioned two more times, the estate refused payment.
The resolution to Belinda’s legal battle is unknown, but her story doesn’t end here. Her petition and story were published globally, and proved that paying reparations is possible. We honor this history and call for its long overdue conclusion to see that reparations are paid to the Black community.
Source: Roy E. Finkenbine, “Belinda’s Petition: Reparations for Slavery in Revolutionary Massachusetts,” The William and Mary Quarterly
Image: Zinn Education Project, http://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/belinda-sutton-petitions
