Phillis, Rose, and Phillis: Enslavement and Illness at Forty Acres
Phillis' chest
With the scant records we have of enslaved laborers who lived at Forty Acres, it can be difficult to piece together the connections between objects in the house and the lives of those who enforced labor supported the farmstead’s survival. The chest upstairs, known as Phillis’ chest, is central to one of the inescapable factors of enslaved life in the North: illness. Between 1775 and 1783, three enslaved young women died at Forty Acres. The first of them, Phillis, died within the chest, as she was being nursed by her owner Elizabeth Porter Phelps.
Rose (1761-1781), Phillis (1765-1775), and Rose’s daughter Phillis (1775-1783) all died quite young. Elizabeth mentions in her diary the months before each of their deaths that they had been “poorly.” Funerals were held for each of them, as was common, though we do not know where they would have been buried. It is unlikely that a headstone or a marker would have been placed at their graves.
The cause of Rose’s death is unclear. The first Phillis (1765-1775) died due to tuberculosis. Elizabeth writes in her diary that Phillis (1775-1783) suffered from the “King’s evil” the last year of her life when she was only 7 years old. Though king’s evil was the term for scrofula. her illness was most likely also tuberculosis, as it was commonly misdiagnosed in enslaved people as scrofula. [1] Enslaved people in the North were generally thought to be more prone to illness, especially because of the harsher climate and were often kept in outbuildings and garrets that offered little protection from the cold. There is currently no clear evidence that points to where the enslaved laborers lived at Forty Acres—they may have resided in the garret which would have been frigid in the winter and scorching in the summer, or in the cellar where the temperature would have been more consistent year-round. Regardless, suboptimal living conditions could very well have caused their poor health.
The Phelps’s took Rose and Phillis, age 10, to visit doctors, but Phillis age 7 received a slightly different treatment. In February 1783, Elizabeth notes “Thursday my husband and I up to Mr. Arams’ at Muddy Brook. He a seventh son—we took Phillis with us—think she has a Kings evil.” [2] It was believed that seventh sons of kings, or in this case seventh sons of seventh sons, could cure the King’s Evil by stroking the neck of the invalid. Phillis was brought to Mr. Arams’ to be stroked several times, all in vain. [3] She died a year later in May 1783.
Detail of the chest
Elizabeth, who is often terse and brief in her diary entries, writes rather sentimentally about the deaths of the girls. She had cared personally for Phillis, bringing the chest to her study in the Pine Room to place her by the fire. By lining the chest with blankets, Phillis could rest by the warmth of the fire without being hit by sparks. After Phillis passed, Elizabeth wrote “a little after eight our poor little Phillis left this world.” Seven years later, at the death of the younger Phillis, Elizabeth wrote: “she was a very prety Child, I hope she sleeps in Jesus, being washed in his Blood. Oh Lord grant it may make a suitable impression on all our hearts—remember the Children with mercy—enable us that have the care of ‘em to discharge our Duty faithfully.” [4] She exhibits empathy to the three girls, yet is unaware that their living conditions might ultimately have caused their deaths.
Notes:
1. Warren 50
2. Phelps 127
3. Carlisle 104
4. Carlisle 66 and 104
Sources:
Carlisle, Elizabeth. Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres. New York: Scribner. 2004.
Diary of Elizabeth Porter Phelps, in Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, Box 8 Folder 2, on deposit at Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library.
Phelps, Elizabeth Porter. The Diary of Elizabeth (Porter) Phelps, edited by Thomas Eliot Andrews with an introduction by James Lincoln Huntington in The New England Historical Genealogical Register. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, Jan. 1964.
Romer, Robert H. Slavery in the Connecticut River Valley. Florence, Massachusetts: Levellers Press. 2009.
Warren, Christian. “Northern Chills, Southern Fevers: Race-Specific mortality in American Cities, 1730-1900.” The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 63, No. 1, pp. 23-56.