ABSTRACT
In 1743, an enslaved Native woman named Ann and three of her children emancipated themselves from their owner in Norwich, Connecticut. When they were apprehended a few days later, Ann insisted she was a free-born Mohawk and had been illegally enslaved. By the logic of customary practices and law (even if not always recorded officially), Ann and her progeny should be free. Local officials took Ann’s claims seriously, allowing her to stake her claim to freedom and then testing these claims by interviewing witnesses and even conducting linguistic tests. Ann’s case reveals the power of Native female testimony, gives insights into the Indian slave networks in eighteenth-century North America, and suggests the contours of otherwise largely unarticulated practices and implicit legalities in New England.
