Juno Larcom’s Petition and Will

Juno Larcom (1726-1818) was a formerly enslaved woman of Afro-Indigenous descent who gained her freedom through the United States court of law. Juno Larcom mounted a lawsuit against the family that enslaved her in 1776. She testified in front of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and finally won her freedom in 1777, six years before Massachusetts officially outlawed slavery in the Commonwealth. The documents displayed in this online exhibit are a testament to Juno's long fight for emancipation, highlighting her arduous and groundbreaking fight against enslavement through the court of law and showcasing her acts of resistance and agency. How do Juno Larcom’s legal battle and subsequent triumph change our views of the early leading revolutionaries in New England? 

TRANSCRIPT of Petition:

Dear Mr. Abbott:
Inclosed please find notes of Wm Ellingwood, also, please excuse pencil.
Very truly yours - A. A. Galbuke.

"Sir Please your honor My Mother Come to Capt Hinry Herrick sixtey odd year a goe and my mother Was an inqun Woman she Came from ronok [Roanoke] in North Carolina my mistres tells me and other people and I have served her 46 year and a Bove and my master Larcom has sold two or three of my Children for 7-04-10 and now I am oneasy By reason of selling my children and now jentlemen of the [j]ury and jujes judge ye Weather or noe I hadent art to Be sot at Liberty.
Beverly D=december the 21 1774
Juno X hir mark" ["her mark" above and below the X]

TRANSCRIPT of Last Will:

Negro servant's will
In the name of God, amen. I Juno Larcom of Beverly in the County of Essex, widow, being through the mercy of God, of sound and disposing mind and memory, though in great bodily weakness, do make and publish this my last will and testament, in manner and form following, that is to say; in the first place my will is that my just debts and funeral changes be paid by my executrix.
Item. I give to my daughter Flora Welman my long loose gown.
Item. I give to each of my grandchildren a book, to be chosen by my executrix from the books which I may leave.
Item. I give, devise and bequeath all the residue of my estate, real and personal, wheresoever the some may be, unto my daughter Cloe Turner and to her heirs and assigns forever.
And lastly, I do constitute and ordain my said daughter Cloe sole executrix of this my last will and testament.
In testimony whereof, I the said Juno Larcom do hereunto set my hand and seal, this twenty sixth day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifteen.
Juno X  Larcom ["her mark" above and below the X] seal
Signed, sealed, published pronounced and declared by the said Juno Larcom, as and for her last will and testament in the presence of us who at her request and in her presence, hereunto set our names as witnesses to the same.
Robert Rantoul
Liberty Perry
David Larcom.
Proved April 9, 1816.

(Her death occurred between the dates above).