Medford Arts Council Supports Premiere Based on History of Royall House & Slave Quarters

Medford’s Royall House and Slave Quarters was recently awarded a generous Medford Arts Council grant to support the premiere of “Compelled to Servitude”: The Story of Belinda at Giving Voice, the museum’s annual benefit event on June 7, 2015.

This year, Giving Voice will feature the premiere of a new first-person interpretation of Belinda, whose eloquent 1783 petition to the Massachusetts legislature for a pension from the estate of Isaac Royall Jr. is among the earliest narratives by an African American woman. Renowned storyteller Tammy Denease will use Belinda’s own words to bring this strong woman to life — on the site where she lived and worked — and will discuss her own fascinating creative process with the audience. The afternoon will also include house tours, museum exhibits, music, and refreshments.

The first known documentation of Belinda, a woman enslaved by the Royall family, occurs in 1768, when her son and daughter were baptized in Medford, Massachusetts. In February 1783, in the wake of the American Revolution, Belinda successfully petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a pension for herself and her infirm daughter from the proceeds of Isaac Royall’s estate. She would go on to petition the legislature five more times over the next ten years in her effort to secure payment of what she was owed for a lifetime of servitude. Belinda’s petition has
inspired poets and fascinated historians. It has been seen by some commentators as the first call for reparations for American slavery. And it opens a rare window into the life of an enslaved woman in colonial North America.

Tammy Denease is uniquely qualified to explore and interpret what we know of Belinda and the turbulent times in which she lived. As a storyteller, teaching artist, and living historian, Ms. Denease gives voice to African-American women whose contributions to the American past are all too often obscured in the traditional historical record. With support from the Medford Arts Council, Ms. Denease brought her interpretation of the life of Elizabeth “Mum Bett” Freeman to the Royall House and Slave Quarters for two exciting performances in 2014.

Previous Medford Arts Council grants to the Royall House and Slave Quarters supported the current “Learning from the Landscape” exhibit in the Slave Quarters, purchase of an archival-quality reproduction of John Singleton Copley’s portrait of “Mary and Elizabeth Royall,” and a concert of eighteenth-century music held in the Royall mansion. This year the council also awarded funds for a collaboration with the Medford Historical Society and Museum to bring author Ron Coddington to the Royall House and Slave Quarters in September for a talk on African American Faces of the Civil War.

The Medford Arts Council is a city-appointed agency of volunteers working to promote excellence, access, education, and diversity in local public arts and cultural programming throughout Medford. 2015 marks its 35th anniversary as an organization that is making a difference in Medford.

– Submitted by Tom Lincoln, Royall House Director