Examining Black history on Shelter Island: Generations of one family in local records

In observance of Black History Month, the Shelter Island Historical Society has highlighted some of the lives of enslaved people recorded at Sylvester Manor.

In the Last Will and Testament of Nathaniel Sylvester dated 1680, an enslaved family is listed – “Tammero (male) and Oyou (female); children, Obium (son), Tom, unnamed child, unnamed child.” Tammero and Oyou are bequeathed to Nathaniel’s 17-year-old son Peter; Obium and Tom to 23-year-old Constant; and the unnamed children to 21-year-old Benjamin.

At the time of the bequests, these sons of Nathaniel and Grizzell Sylvester still resided with their mother at the Sylvester home on Shelter Island.

It’s likely that Tammero and Oyou were born in Africa, enslaved and transported across the middle passage to Barbados. Unlike many, they retained traces of their African roots in their names.

We can’t know how or when Tammero and Oyou came into Nathaniel Sylvester’s possession, what talents of theirs attracted him, or how they came together as a couple.

They were among the first group of enslaved African people brought to Shelter Island from Barbados in 1652. To create the settlement at Sylvester Manor, the Africans brought there had to have the skills needed to work the land and perform the duties needed by the provisioning plantation.

These skills included iron working, animal husbandry, brick making and burning charcoal, blacksmithing and working with livestock. Physical strength was needed to pack and load the vessels leaving Shelter Island for Barbados.

Women needed skills in tending kitchen gardens, cooking, household chores, crafts and sewing.

Life on Shelter Island for the enslaved was a hard one, full of heavy physical labor, adapting to a foreign climate and enduring the hopeless isolation and imprisonment of living in slavery on a remote, newly colonized island.

Because these enslaved people were bought and sold between families, there are some records of their existence among the household ledgers.

Obium, the son of Tammero and Oyou, was born on Shelter Island and when he was sold to James Lloyd in 1687 along with his parents, he likely was sent to Boston, perhaps leaving the Island for the first time.

Obium ran away from Boston and the Lloyds on a stolen horse. A receipt in James Lloyd’s 1693 Will notes that a reward of one pound, twenty shilling was paid for the return of “the horse Obium ran away on.” It seems likely that Obium attempted to follow his parents, who had been bought back by the Sylvesters, and returned to Shelter Island, despite the risks.

We know Obium, as well as the horse, was returned to Lloyd, as later documents indicate the Lloyds frequently hired him out to perform work for others; payments for his services were paid to the Lloyds themselves. It may have been in this period that Obium learned to read and write.

Obium married an enslaved woman named Rose, and in 1711 they had a son they named Jupiter. Rose is believed to have been born at Lloyd Manor, and, like Obium, she is also thought to have learned to read and write. In an Anglican Prayer Book owned by him, Obium wrote an inscription:

“Obium Rooe — his book. God give him Grace — 1710/11.” The second “o” in the name may be read as an “s,” indicating Obium and Rose.

No further documentation of the couple has been found; the prayer book was passed to their son. Jupiter took the last name of Hammon and served four generations of Lloyds at their Manor. He remained enslaved all his life. His ability to read and write enabled him to serve the Lloyds beyond physical labor and he was given a room for himself in the Manor house.

He was an accomplished poet; with his first poem printed in 1760, he became the first African American published poet. On Sept. 24, 1786, Jupiter Hammon expressed his views on slavery when he delivered his “Address to the Negroes of the State of New York,” also known as the “Hammon Address,” before the African Society.

He was 76 at the time of the address. The speech contains his famous words, “If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves.”