By Catherine Matthews and Erin Wederbrook Yuskaitis
Co-Directors of Education, Old North Church & Historic Site
Merchant. Mariner. Chocolate maker. Smuggler. Slave trader. One historically unimportant man encompassed all of these professions in a complicated web of commodity, human trafficking, murder, and Old North Church.Owner of pew 13 and father of three children baptized at Old North, Captain Newark Jackson’s life seemed to tell a generic tale that united the stories of the seafaring community, the Triangle Trade, and the business of small merchants in the colonial era.
However, years of research in archives around the world revealed, layer by layer, that Jackson’s life was far more sordid than it originally seemed. Early research concluded that Jackson owned three enslaved individuals: two men (Boston and Warham) and one woman (Siller). Still more research uncovered an association between Jackson and a ring of wealthy men affiliated with Old North who smuggled commodities within and from the tropics. They also traded in enslaved Africans, trafficking human beings in their ships’ holds alongside goods such as textiles and cacao.
A recreation of the newspaper ad Jackson took out.
Jackson’s life ended violently and abruptly in 1743 when he was murdered during a mutiny aboard the Rising Sun, a ship tied to the smuggling ring connected to Old North. Examination of the cargo lists revealed that Jackson was transporting thirteen enslaved children and two enslaved men on his final voyage. We do not know what happened to these people.
The Rising Sun ship’s manifest indicating (in Dutch) that 13 children were included in the cargo.
As a result of a two-year, transnational research project – which drew from archives in Massachusetts, the United Kingdom, the Caribbean, and the Netherlands – into Captain Newark Jackson, Old North Church & Historic Site will embark on an ambitious educational initiative to investigate and present its connections and entanglement with slavery through the cacao trade. Further, the education department will incorporate these stories - of the enslaved peoples whose lives intertwined with the church's history along with the stories of the congregants of color who attended services freely or through bondage - to deepen the on-site interpretation and to challenge and enhance the visitor's understanding of Old North's role in the founding of our nation and our nation's changing identity.
Once we secure further funding, it will support the completion of research on Newark Jackson, George Ledain, and the Rising Sun; further research on Old North and its connection to slavery, chocolate, and the chocolate trade, providing a parallel investigation into Old North’s place and role in the commodification of cacao and captive Africans in Boston, New England, and the British Empire; and finally, research on congregants of color at Old North, focusing specifically on the lived experiences of these congregants, exploring issues such as church membership, their role in church services, and their place in the church as an institution. Moreover, we will create a fully conceived, articulate, and compelling interpretive plan for Old North that interweaves slavery and the cacao trade with the site’s overarching theme of active citizenship to help the visitor more fully understand the complicated, complex history of the site, the city, and the region.
The story of Newark Jackson may not be the story it initially seemed to be, but it demonstrates how research can deepen and broaden our understanding of the past, change our perceptions, and lead to more questions. This project of Old North proves that history is an active profession, and our interpretation changes as we unearth documents and resources previously undiscovered.
