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Election Day Festivities


A critical holiday tradition that was observed solely by Black folk in colonial New England was Election Day. On these occasions in the North, specifically in "Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, [Election Days] were at the very heart of slave culture in the eighteenth century" (White 1994, 15). On this day "Black folk in the English colonies found ways to carry on some of their traditional African practices…of music and dancing" (Southern 1997, 52). The earliest recorded event of this holiday tradition took place on May 27, 1741; and by the 1790s, when it reached its peak, it found its way to eighteen other towns in New England. By the 1850s the tradition was on its demise (Wade 1981, 212).

Melvin Wades' discourse on the Election Day activities cites James Newhall's observation of this special day, which gives one some insight on what took place:

So long as slavery existed in Massachusetts, our colored brethren-who were allowed by their masters an annual vacation of four days, beginning with the day on which the General Court made their elections-were accustomed then, in imitation of their masters, to assemble on Boston Common or in some other or in some other convenient place, and proceed to elect rulers from their own ranks; or rather imitation rulers, rulers without authority and without subjects. They engage in their sportive political ceremonies with a keen relish, the more so perhaps from having no real interest to be anxious about, and wound up with scenes of unlimited jollity. And the whole of their vacation was marked by excess such as might be expected from a class so ignorant and so excitable when free from restraint.

(Wade 1981, 215)

Election Day parade in Harford, Connecticut, included an escort that "numbers as many as one hundred marching double-file or mounted on horseback (Wade 1981, 225; Southern 1997, 52). Furthermore, the parade featured "drums beating, colors flying' and fifes, fiddles, clarionets, and every sonorous metal that could be found, uttering martial sound. In Newport, the Black celebrants' voices were in their highest key…all the various languages of Africa, mixed with broken and ludicrous English, filled the air accompanied by the fiddle's music, tambourine, the banjo, drum, etc. A communal feast followed the parade, followed by singing and dancing, including an election ball in a larger town (Wade 1991, 224-226). These festivities, according to Southern "undoubtedly brought back race memories, if not individual memories, of the elaborate ceremonies attendant upon the election and inauguration of chiefs and kings in Africa" (Southern 1997, 53).

Go Down, Moses

Dark and thorny is de pathway
Where de pilgrim makes his ways;
But beyond dis vale of sorrow
Lie de fields of endless days.

Howard Thurman

For [the slaves] the 'troubled waters' meant the ups and downs, the vicissitudes of life. Within the context of the 'troubled' waters of life there are healing waters, because God is in the midst of the turmoil. Do not shrink from moving confidently out into the choppy seas. Wade in the water, because God is troubling the water.