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Even though there was slavery in Amherst there was also abolition. There is no mention of slavery in Amherst after 1776. Once slavery ended in Amherst some people still treated blacks unequally. Some people even tried to sell blacks into southern slavery. Some taunting occurred and even escalated to violence.

Slaves in Amherst worked as general laborers, farm workers, domestic servants, or tavern help, doing the hardest and dirtiest jobs that no one else wanted to do. They plowed and sowed fields with oxen, worked in saw and gristmills grinding, cutting, loading and driving wagons. Many of them trained in the trades of their owners, learning skills like blacksmithing, milling, farming, driving a wagon and team, and working in a tavern.

Upon the day March 14, 1856, a local newspaper ran an editorial column recounting an incident of stolen meat. This was probably the most overtly racist article directed at African Americans to appear in the local paper during the 1800's. Insults like “mutton-head” and “darkey” which were used in the column were bigot terms.

Another instance of intolerance happened in July of 1846. The local newspaper wrote that a Mrs. Anderson who was lodging at one of the local hotels was being constantly harassed and assaulted. The “Mrs. Anderson” referred to was Ann Anderson who was a native of South Carolina and may have been a fugitive slave. She was a single mother with two children who were five and six years old. Ann was treated badly because the color of her skin. Is that right? NO IT ISN'T!!!!!

Amherst had a very active anti-slavery movement beginning in 1820s. Amherst College probably accepted and graduated its first African American student because the president of the college, Herman Humphrey, was very active in the American Colonization Movement. This movement felt that blacks should be free, but should not stay in the U.S.

In 1833 the students of Amherst College formed an Anti-Slavery Society which had 75 members. It was abandoned within a few years because the President of the College was afraid that violence might arise out of their activities. The Society revived in 1837 but four years later it died out for good.

Throughout the town there were many people who were both for and against slavery. Reverend Hunt, appointed the first pastor of North Congregational Church in 1826, was very anti-slavery. In that same year, at that same church, Oliver Dickinson was bound and determined to have a “Jim Crow” pew. This pew, which would be at the very back of the church, would be reserved for African Americans. It was never constructed.

Thank you to our great source http://www.amhersthistory.org/ahm_aa/ahm_aa19.htm