Henry Mainjoy of Senegal and Exeter

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, February 26, 2021.

Henry Mainjoy, formerly enslaved by Noah Emery, lived into his eighties in his house on Green Street. Here are a few reminiscences about him from some nostalgic white neighbors. “It is not necessary that I should say much in regard to Harry. He was well and favorably known to nearly all now living in Exeter and vicinity (this was written in 1879 – by an unidentified commentator to the Exeter News-Letter). “I remember him when he was first brought to Squire Noah Emery’s. Judging from his size I should think he could not have been more than 12 years of age. He was the blackest, sleekest, lithest little chap that I ever saw.” Exeter’s historian, Charles Bell, said of him, “Harry Manjoy, sometimes called Emery, is well remembered. He was brought to Exeter by Noah Emery, a shipmaster, not from Africa, probably, but from some foreign port where he was offered for sale. He claimed to have been a prince in his native country. He lived with Captain Emery until the latter’s death, and afterwards supported himself by his labor. He was industrious and respectable, and lived to a good old age.” Dr. William Perry, who delivered most of Mainjoy’s children, told a similar tale, “A negro well known in those days was Harry Manjoy. He was brought here by Captain Noah Emery, a sea captain, who picked him up in some foreign port. He was a very steady and industrious man and had a family equally industrious and respectable.”

Elizabeth Dow Leonard also recalled that Mainjoy “was said to be an African Prince, captured off the coast of Africa and purchased and brought to Exeter by Captain Emery. He was a tall, fine-looking man, black as ebony and was very much respected. He married, raised a family of excellent children, some of whom still live.”

Key to all of these accounts is the word “brought.” Leonard concedes that Mainjoy was “purchased,” but none of the accounts seem to find any harm in the fact that the boy was trafficked to America and never again had contact with his family. His status within the Emery family wasn’t well defined – was he a slave or a servant? Was he a member of the family, taken in out of Christian kindness? It is often difficult to determine the exact legal standing of Black ‘servants’ in New England. Loathe to use the word ‘slave,’ ‘servant’ was often substituted in a coded way. There was no way Harry could leave the Emery household. He was not free to travel back to his rightful family and Emery had paid for the boy, no matter his treatment in Exeter. Perhaps they thought of him as more of an apprentice. Legally, in this time-period, a child’s labor was owned by his parents until he reached the age of 21. He could be hired-out or apprenticed or legally bound to his father’s occupation, only granted his time if his father allowed it.

For once, we don’t have to rely on the memories of unrelated people. Two years before his death, Henry Mainjoy gave an interview of sorts to “T” of the Exeter News-Letter. “His recollection is still fresh in regard to his early life, though he was brought away from his native country in 1806 at the age of about ten years.” Mainjoy was born in Africa, near Senegal a member of the Fula people. “He remembers that his parents were living in a small house, or hut, made by weaving a species of cane so tightly together as to exclude rain and wind.” Food was plentiful. His people were cattle herders. “His recollection is that life was easy and comfortable, unconnected with suffering from want of any kind.”

“Harry remembers only one caution of special importance enjoined upon him by his parents, which was to avoid going far from the house into the bushes, lest he be seized by hinters for slaves, and be carried and sold to a slave trader. He was generally very careful to obey his parents in this regard, as were the other children living in the neighboring huts. One day he was out with three or four other children, larger than himself, about thirty or forty rods away from the hut of his parents, when two men suddenly sprang up and ran to seize the boys. They had guns and told the boys to stop, and to make no noise, on pain of being shot if they disobeyed. The other boys, however, chose to trust to their heels, running the risk of being shot, rather than be captured, and they ran for their lives and all made good their escape. Harry was smaller and was easily taken. The men hurried him away with all possible rapidity, and soon he was far away from home and friends, and in about a week reached Senegal, having been joined on the way by others similarly captured, to the number of thirty or forty.”

“At Senegal he was put into a long house for the detention of slaves, having, as he remembers, seats on each side, occupied by captured people waiting to be sold to slave dealers. After waiting a few days in this house of misery, a kind looking white man, one of the first he had ever seen, came into the slave pen and after examining the crowd selected him, bought him for twenty-five dollars, and took him away, on board of his ship, then lying in the harbor. In a few days he was on his way to America, and in about sixty days entered the port of Salem, Massachusetts.”

There’s no way to put a positive spin on this. The “kind looking white man” purchased him not to redeem him to his worried parents, but to separate him from his home and steal his life and labor. The writer of the article goes on to say, “Harry had good fortune on the day he was purchased in Senegal. The man who bought him was Capt. Emery, a native and resident of Exeter.” Harry was, “introduced immediately into all the privileges and enjoyments of the most favored of his color in this part of the country. He soon learned the English language, and it may be added forgot his native tongue. He was sent to school, learned to read, write and cipher, was retained in easy service, yet not as a slave, of course, till he was twenty years old, when with good principles and habits he struck out for himself, and has ever since resided in Exeter.” His freedom from duty to Noah Emery, lauded by the reporter as though he’d earned it by aging out, was ended because Emery died. It’s entirely possible that he might have remained in service much longer had Emery lived a few decades more.

Mainjoy married Abigail Pickering in early 1819. His first two children were listed as those of “Harry Emery” by Dr. Perry, but by 1820, he’d begun using “Mainjoy” (sometimes spelled “Manjoy”) as his legal name. Perhaps this was his original name – it is uncommon enough that his children are easy to find in genealogy records. He and Abby had nine children, six of whom we’ve been able to find. He and Abby and two of their daughters are buried in well-marked graves in the Exeter Cemetery. He wasn’t a prince. He never returned home. We can only hope that he was able to find peace in the comfort of his American family.

Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org

Image: Henry Mainjoy, born in the Senegal region of Africa about 1797, was kidnapped into slavery. He was a free man in Exeter by 1817, and lived the remainder of his days with his American-born family in a house located at 17 Green Street. The house no longer stands, it was replaced by the current house in 1894.