Draft:Chloe Spear

Chloe Spear (c. 1749-1815) is a Boston Freedwoman most noted for her commitment to the Christian faith and generosity to her Boston community. Her life has been documented through two primary documents. The first is a biographical account Published in 1815 by Dr. Thomas Bladwin, minister of the Second Baptist Church. The second, The Memoir of Mrs. Chloe Spear, was written in 1832 by a self-proclaimed Lady of Boston.

Chloe Spear was born in Africa in 1749. Around the age of twelve, she was captured and brought to America, where she was purchased by Captain John Bradford, a merchant and Continental agent for Massachusetts, serving him and his family in Boston. Mrs. Spear is described as being valued for her skills, which gave her some freedom as an enslaved person, but was not allowed to learn how to read and was threatened by Mr. Bradford when it was discovered she had been taking reading lessons. Mr. Bradford never taught his slaves the Christian faith, but Mrs. Spear continued to read her psalter in secret, kindling her love for Christ.

During the Revolutionary War, the Bradfords moved twenty miles north of Boston to Andover, Massachusetts, where Mrs. Spear befriended Mr. Adams, a devout Christian who counseled and instructed her in religious and spiritual matters. Eventually, the Bradford family returned to Boston, where Mrs. Spear became a member of the New North Congregation Church. Later, she attended the Second Baptist Church, where she was baptized in 1788.

In 1776, Mrs. Spear married a man named Cesar Spear and would have seven children, all of whom she would outlive. Soon after the war, Mr. Bradford promised to free Mrs. Spear, but she negotiated her freedom with the Bardfords before the inevitable outlaw of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783.

After her emancipation, she continued to work for the Bradfords while also managing a boarding house for sailors and workers in The North End, where she bought a home with her husband. Soon after moving, her husband became ill and died in 1806.

After her husband's death, Mrs. Spear opened her home to religious meetings and gatherings for Bostonians of all races to pray and discuss Christianity. Her biography and The Memoir of Mrs. Chloe Spear describe her as a prominent, beloved figure in the black and white communities.

In 1815, at the age of 65, Mrs. Spear died from severe arthritis and rheumatic affections. She was buried in the White Bradford family vault in Boston's Granary Burial Place. Her one-line death notice in a Boston newspaper described her as "A colored woman, highly respected" (Columbian Centinel, 7 Jan. 1815.)

After her emancipation, Mrs. Spear acquired significant assets and property, especially after being enslaved for thirty years of her life. She is recognized for her generously written will, gifting money to her surviving grandson and eight black Bostonians with connections to the Second Baptist Church. She also left part of her $1,400 estate to the church's fund for the poor and Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society.

References

https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brownrw/summary.html

https://enslaved.org/fullStory/16-23-126872/#:~:text=Spear's%20religiosity%20was%20ecumenical.,at%20Boston's%20African%20Baptist%20Church.

https://royallhouse.org/chloe-spear-by-margot-minardi/

https://books.google.com/books?id=w_b9ih_U8NAC&q=Chloe+spear#v=snippet&q=Chloe%20spear&f=false