The Royall House and Slave Quarters
Medford, Massachusetts

Slave Life at the Royall House

Little is written about the lives of slaves at the Royall House. Census and probate records have preserved the names of 63 men, women, and children enslaved by the Royalls. For a list of names and tenure of these 63 individuals see Slave Tenure at the Royall House. This number is probably representative, but may well be incomplete. More importantly, most of what we know about their daily lives has been unearthed through the archaeological investigations at the site.

Ten Hills Farm was a 600-acre farm that was principally involved in wool and cider production, the raising of livestock, and the growing of English and Upland hay. These tasks would have been carried out by slaves, who, in the North, were frequently jacks-of-all trades, as well as skilled in several specialized tasks.

Slaves were housed in the Great House, where Isaac Royall, Sr.'s probate inventory lists "negro beds" in the kitchen, the kitchen chamber, and the attic spinning garrets, as well as in the Out Kitchen. Other slaves might have been housed in other outbuildings on the property, in closer proximity to their places of work, perhaps in barn lofts or boathouses.

Since the Royalls' farm has long since been subdivided and developed into what is now the City of Medford, nearly all of these outbuildings are forever lost to us. Our work around the Great House and Out Kitchen, however, has shed considerable light on aspects of slave life at the heart of the estate.

Archeological evidence of rest and relaxation at the Royall House comes principally in the form of tobacco pipes and gaming pieces.

Smoking was an important part of social life in the quarter, enjoyed by both men and women.

Finding evidence of "games" and leisure in the archaeological record is more than quaint. In recreation, we see an active reassertion of humanity within the worst of dehumanizing conditions. The prevalence of such evidence on slave sites across the country attests to its importance, as do the often creative ways the slaves created and possessed these items.

A few artifacts from the Royall House provide scant but provocative evidence of an African-American aesthetic among the Royalls' slaves in the realms of magic, religion, and medicine. These artifacts undermine the idea that New England slaves were necessarily more assimilated into Anglo-American cultural forms than enslaved peoples elsewhere. They may represent the slaves' own endeavors to harness higher powers to protect themselves from, or prevent the worst effects of, family and community instability.

Plant and Animal Remains

Several hundred berry seeds, and over 4,000 faunal specimens were recovered from the Royall House, 86.5% of which were found in the yards surrounding the Slave Quarters.

Archaeology on early African-American sites in the South and Caribbean have almost universally found large quantities of wild animal and fish bone, which has suggested that slaves in these regions often hunted and fished for themselves to supplement the provisions supplied by their masters.

Surprisingly, this was not at all the case at the Royall House. The floral and faunal remains suggest that, with the exception of the occasional berry-picking excursion, the Royalls' slaves were doing little or nothing to supplement the provisions they got from the resources of Ten Hills Farm, either through the exploitation of wild resources or the cultivation of domesticated ones.

As of yet, there are no comparative data to be had to help us interpret this surprising phenomenon.

As more early African-American sites from the colonial North are excavated, it will be of great interest to see if the same pattern plays out across the region, possibly hinting at some fundamental, systemic differences between Northern and Southern or Caribbean slave adaptations.

Copyright 2004-20011, The Royall House Association