Enslaved Women of Massachusetts, names known and names once known

Thousands of women and girls endured the degrading conditions of slavery in colonial and Revolutionary Massachusetts. Some of their names were Juno, Lucy, Dido, and Patience. Massachusetts, home to an active abolitionist movement, was also home to more than 5,000 enslaved people in the mid-1700s. Enslaved people and their allies–through their freedom lawsuits, petitions, and acts of defiance–brought about the end of slavery in Massachusetts between the years 1781 and 1783.