Sabe and Rose
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  • Elias Hasket Derby Dies


    Elias Hasket Derby died in 1799, and shortly after, Sabe received two years’ worth of back wages and interest from the Derby estate settlement. But earning wages was not a possibility for every free person.


    Lacking viable options, some free people likely chose to stay with their former enslaver without the promise of wages, in return for housing and possibly even education for themselves or their children. And reliable housing would have been a priority because of the practice of “warning out” poor families unable to support themselves.


    In 1790, Salem warned out almost 100 African American families - a significant percentage of the city's Black population. At the same time, 300 white families were warned out. While the white families were allowed to stay in Salem through the winter, the African American families were forced to leave in December.


    The death of one's former enslaver disrupted relationships between free people and the families who had enslaved them. Some white families would have felt their obligations to the free people were complete. And some free people would have viewed the death of their former enslaver as an opportunity to begin a new chapter, independent from their former enslavers. Perhaps in Salem, or perhaps in a new city.

    Image Description

    Oil on canvas portrait of Elias Hasket Derby, 1800–25, by James Frothingham.

    Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, Gift of the Derby Family, 1824. M353.