Tomorrow's Dawn: How the Eighteenth-Century Trials of Quock Walker and Elizabeth Freeman (Mumbet) Led to Slavery's End in Massachusetts
Andrew NooneIn Tomorrow's Dawn, historian Andrew Noone offers a compelling account of two court cases that initiated the long battle to ban slavery in America. Through the better part of the eighteenth century, enslaving African-Americans was practiced throughout the colonies. Widespread in the South, it took a destructive civil war to end it. Less appreciated to this day, slavery was actively practiced in the Northern colonies as well. While Vermont and Pennsylvania enacted provisional bans, the first state to unconditionally ban slavery was Massachusetts. Seminal legal cases were instrumental. In 1781 Quock Walker, an enslaved farmhand, learned that the recently passed Massachusetts constitution held that "all men are created free and equal." Walker ran away, but was captured, triggering landmark litigation on his behalf. At the same time, Mumbet, an enslaved woman, fled her home, escaping to an estate whose owner, Theodore Sedgwick, was prepared to argue for her freedom.
The Walker and Mumbet cases engaged a cast of reformers who would play significant roles in the early decades of the republic, including John Adams, Caleb Strong, Levi Lincoln, William Cushing and Sedgwick. The cases arose as states struggled to reconcile divergent aspirations for freedom and human rights. Massachusetts could not be a beacon of liberty while tolerating human bondage. It took the courage of two enslaved people for Massachusetts to make a bolder commitment to universal justice. Andrew Noone has written a timely and inspiring account of how dependent the "American experiment" is on the personal courage of litigants and the power of well-defended constitutional principles.Through deft description, analysis, and interpretation of the lives and experiences of two enslaved people of African descent in eighteenth-century Massachusetts ... this well-crafted and contextually probing book provides much insight, derived from ample historical sources, including freedom suits, into troubling questions related to slavery and freedom during the American Revolution. How matters evolved in Massachusetts, outside the heartland of slavery, sheds light on underrepresented dimensions of the Revolution in the emergence of the new nation.
--Barry Gaspar, Duke University, author of Bondmen and Rebels
--Emily Blanck, Rowan University, author of Tyrannicide: Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary South Carolina and Massachusetts ... tells the important but often overlooked story of the ending of slavery in Massachusetts. With scholarship that skillfully combines insights from legal and social history and an appreciation for the histories of New England and West Africa, Noone has given us an insightful look at that "first emancipation" that set the stage for the still unfinished quest for racial justice in the nation.
--Robert Cottrol, George Washington University, author of The Long, Lingering Shadow: Slavery, Race, and Law in the American Hemisphere
... a crucial retelling of the founding of the United States and the fight for liberty. Well written and expertly researched, Noone's book is a must read for those who seek to better understand how African Americans shaped United States history.
--Ousmane Power-Greene, E. Franklin Chair of African Studies, Clark University, author of Against Wind and Tide: The African American Struggle Against the Colonization Movement
In this compelling history, Noone traces the intertwined struggles of Quock Walker and Mumbet, whose court victories helped end slavery in Massachusetts. A vivid narrative of courage, law, and the radical promise of liberty.
--Richard Bell, University of Maryland, College Park, author of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Tidepool Press
Published: 10/01/2026
ISBN: 9798990133488
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.00d