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WILLOUGHBY, ISAAC, enslaved Black man and farmer; b. c. 1760, probably in Rhode Island; d. after 1834.

Petitioning for aid

In 1822 a former slave, Isaac Willoughby, who lived in Cornwallis Township, N.S., and likely laboured on small farms, submitted a petition for financial assistance to the colony’s governor, Sir James Kempt*. Drafted by politician William Allen Chipman* and John Wells, the petition was followed by a shorter version presented to the colony’s House of Assembly in December 1833, the year the British government ended slavery throughout the empire. The Slavery Abolition Act generously compensated slave owners, but not the enslaved. Possibly Willoughby believed that, as a former slave, he was entitled to some form of reparation to address what the second petition described as his “peculiar circumstances of distress.” His petitions are important because they reveal aspects of the life of an enslaved person according to his own account, something very rare in the documentation of the colonial Maritimes.

Purchasing freedom

According to his first petition, Isaac “was born a slave” in the colony of Rhode Island and remained the property of his master, David Willoughby, until, at age 36, he purchased his freedom for £20. That he was able to buy his way out of enslavement suggests that Isaac must have been a skilled labourer who hired out his services and saved the money received. Sometime before 1815 he also purchased his brother’s freedom for £40, using his “own industrious earnings.” Upon his release his brother “engaged to repay him” but was soon pressed into the Royal Navy, leaving Isaac without the promised funds.

Facing financial strains

After purchasing his brother’s freedom, Willoughby “for a considerable time … prospered in his lawful undertakings” by farming, including raising, buying, and selling cattle. Then came losses. His 1822 petition outlined setbacks that cost him roughly £100 – notably the “failure of those with whom he had entrusted his property.” These strains increased when his 80-year-old mother was “left destitute” following the death of her master and became dependent on her son, who was himself 62 years old. Having purchased a home that was “not … yet fully paid,” and no longer “being able to labour to [the] extent he once could,” he needed assistance to support his wife and two children. In his 1833 petition he lamented that his family was “a burthen too heavy for his advanced years,” and he was thus “reduced to the necessity” of appealing to the colony’s House of Assembly.

His submission of 1833 was backed by William Campbell, H. Harrington, and Elisha DeWolf, in addition to Chipman and Wells, who had signed Willoughby’s first petition 11 years earlier. They described Willoughby as “a sober and industrious man.” Despite their support, he withdrew his second petition for unknown reasons.

During the 1810s and 1820s Nova Scotian newspapers included much racist commentary about Black people’s slovenliness and lack of initiative. Kempt’s predecessor, the Earl of Dalhousie [Ramsay*], held these views, claiming that free Blacks, whose “idea of freedom is idleness,” would not work without the dread of the lash. Isaac Willoughby’s life strongly contradicts such prejudice. He would rarely have been idle while enslaved in Rhode Island and Nova Scotia, during which time he saved sufficiently to release himself from slavery. And, once freed, he continued to work hard, buying his brother’s liberty, earning enough to farm, putting down money on a house, and struggling to support his wife, children, and aged mother. His story reveals his determination and work ethic in the face of challenges confronting Black people in the colonial Maritimes after gaining freedom.

Harvey Amani Whitfield