January 1781

On November 29–December 1, 1781, Captain Luke Collingwood of the slave ship Zong ordered 132 living enslaved Africans thrown into the Atlantic. He claimed the ship was short of water and that killing the captives — rather than allowing them to die of illness — would allow the ship's owners, Gregson & Co., to collect insurance on the 'cargo.' The owners filed a claim; underwriters refused. The case went to court in 1783.

Quock Walker, enslaved in Barre, Massachusetts, escaped to a neighboring farm and was recaptured. He sued Nathaniel Jennison for assault and battery, arguing he had been promised freedom. In Walker v. Jennison (1781), the court found for Walker. A related case, Commonwealth v. Jennison (1783), saw Chief Justice William Cushing instruct the jury that the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, declaring all men born free and equal, had effectively abolished slavery in the state. Jennison was convicted.

Elizabeth Freeman, known as Mum Bett, was enslaved in Sheffield, Massachusetts. After being struck by her enslaver's wife, she approached attorney Theodore Sedgwick. He argued that the Massachusetts Constitution's declaration of universal freedom applied to her. The court agreed; Freeman was freed and awarded nominal damages. She took the surname Freeman, worked as a paid servant for the Sedgwicks, and became the first enslaved person in Massachusetts freed by judicial ruling under the new const

A series of freedom suits by Quock Walker leads Massachusetts courts to rule slavery incompatible with the new state constitution — effectively ending it there.