Robert Morris

Robert Morris (1824-1882) was born to York and Mercy Morris, free African Americans living in Salem, Massachusetts. At age 15, Morris was employed as a servant in Ellis Gray Loring’s home where, fortuitously, Morris was called upon to serve as a stand-in for Loring’s usual mentee when he missed work; Loring was so impressed with his work that he kept him on indefinitely.1 According to William Cooper Nell, “Robert Morris Jr.,2 acquired his excellence of character and correct business habits in the office of Ellis Gray Loring, Esq., Master in Chauncery.”3 In 1847, Morris’s training under Loring paid off and he became the second African American to practice law in Massachusetts.4 In 1848, Morris’s son, Robert Morris, Jr., was born to Morris’s wife, Catharine H. Mason (whom he married two years before); on Robert Morris Jr.s’ birth records, Morris was listed for the first time as an “Attorney at Law” living in Hathorne, just outside of Boston.5 Robert Morris Jr. would later follow his father’s example and become a (less-known) lawyer. Morris continued to practice law in a number of offices throughout Boston until his death, due to heart disease, in 1882.6

Robert Morris’s participation in the 1855 Colored Convention is anything but surprising given his legal activities in Boston during the years leading up to and following the convention. Most notably, Morris worked on cases centering on African American education and the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1850, for instance, Morris took part in Sarah Roberts v, The City of Boston alongside famed lawyers and abolitionists like Charles Sumner.7 Although the Roberts family and their legal team, including Morris, did not win, their case set an important precedent for later civil rights activities including Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education.8 Morris also took part in another notable court case—his own. In United States v. Robert Morris, Morris was charged9 with aiding a fugitive slave, Shadrach Minkins, escape to Canada.10 With the help of notable abolitionist lawyers, Charles Sumner, John P. Hale (NH), and Richard H. Dana, Jr. (MA), Morris won his case.11 Five years after the 1855 Colored Convention, newspaper evidence shows a continuation of Morris’s actions against the Fugitive Slave Law and unequal treatment of African Americans in the U.S. legal system. He is noted taking part in political activities with the hopes of “[b]lotting out “white” from statue book,”12 while also inspiring legislative action that would include African Americans into the military to serve in the American Civil War.13 Finally, in 1866 Morris ran for mayor.14 Although he was not elected to office, his campaign definitively marked his status in Boston society and politics.15 During these years he also had offices in Scollay’s Square, a major abolitionist hot spot in central Boston;16 these offices are not a coincidence considering Morris’s intensely abolitionist circle of friends. Moreover, comments like the following indicate the strength of Morris’s own abolitionism: to his protégé, Edwin Garrison Walker, Morris said, “Don’t ever try to run from our people. Do you wear gloves? If you do, take them off and go down among our people.”17

Little documentation remains regarding Robert Morris’s active participation in the 1855 Convention. He would have likely taken part (probably via informal conversations) in discussions surrounding the Fugitive Slave Law, but most especially the segregation of education. Because Roberts v. The City of Boston took part just a few years before the 1855 Colored Convention, it was probably still a subject at the forefront of Morris’s mind. Given his immense popularity during his life (a newspaper in Chicago referred to him as “Boston’s Lawyer”18), it is unfortunate that only a few critical works focus solely on Morris (one being an Op-Ed article from the New York Times19). Most articles about the Sarah Roberts v. The City of Boston case at least mention Morris’s participation, but the vast majority tend to focus on white abolitionist participants like Charles Sumner.  J. Clay Smith’s text, Emancipation, focuses almost an entire chapter, “The Genesis of the Black Lawyer,” on Morris’s legal and political life.

Credits

Submitted on 22 March 2013 by Elizabeth A. Boyle, graduate student at the University of Delaware. Researched for English 634, Spring 2013, taught by Professor P. Gabrielle Foreman. 

Edited by Harry Lewis and Samantha de Vera, ENGL641, Spring 2016. Taught by P. Gabrielle Foreman, University of Delaware. 



[19] Stephen Kantrowitz, “Equality First, Guns Afterward,” Opinionator, The New York Times, published 1 Mar 2013, accessed 20 Mar 2013.

References

Ancestry.com. Massachusetts City Directories (1883)[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Accessed 12 Mar 2013.

Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Accessed 12 Mar 2013.

“Black Entrepreneurs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Brochure” New England Economic Adventure. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. <Link>.

“Boston’s Lawyer Dead.” The Conservator [Chicago, IL] 23 December 1882: V47. Negro Newspapers for the American Council of Learned Studies. Library of Congress. Web. Ancestry.com. U.S., African American Newspapers, 1829-1947 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

Kantrowitz, Stephen. “Equality First, Guns Afterward.” Opinionator. The New York Times, 1 Mar 2013. Web. 20 Mar 2013. 

Kendrick, Stephen and Paul Kendrick. Sarah’s Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America. Boston: Beacon P, 2004. Google Books. Web. 20 Mar 2013.

“Letter From Boston.” The Weekly Anglo-African [New York] 14 April 1860: I39. Negro Newspapers for the American Council of Learned Studies. Library of Congress. Web. Ancestry.com. U.S., African American Newspapers, 1829-1947 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

"Massachusetts, Births, 1841-1915," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FXWH-8BT : accessed 13 Mar 2013), Robert Morris, 1848. Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Nell, William Cooper. “George B. Vashon.” North Star. 28 Jan 1848: 1.4. In William Cooper Nell: Selected Writings 1832-1874. Ed. Dorothy Porter Wesley and Constantine Porter Uzelac. Baltimore: Black Class P, 2002.

“Roberts vs. City of Boston Begins.” African American Registry. Education Minnesota Foundation, n.d. Web. 18 Mar 2013.

“Slavery: Fugitive Slave Law.” Long Road to Justice. Massachusetts Historical Society, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. 

“Slavery: The Ordeal of Shadrach Minkins.” Long Road to Justice. Massachusetts Historical Society, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.

Smith Jr., J. Clay. “New England: The Genesis of the Black Lawyer.” Emancipation. Pennsylvania: U of Pennsylvania P, 1999. Google Books. Web. 96-119.

Wilson, Cynthia. “Robert Morris, Sr.” Blackpast.org. Black Genealogy Research Group, n.d. Web. 18 Mar 2013. <Link>.