A Student Presentation by Julia Jarvis
Dick Putnam was a slave under Israel Putnam. Since he was a slave, we don’t know many solid facts about him, but we can make educated guesses.
According to an anecdote from Israel Putnam, Dick was already a Spanish slave when he (Putnam) arrived in Havana in 1762. At that time he was on a trip to conquer the Spanish port for England. He found a slave being beaten by a Spaniard. Israel Putnam then saved the lad from this awful dehumanizing and terrible treatment, and exercised paternalism by bringing the young boy back to his farm in (present-day) Brooklyn, Connecticut.” When the Revolution began, Dick also enlisted as his master Israel Putnam had.
In 1777, an interesting act was passed by the Connecticut Assembly. This would be able to give slaves an opportunity for freedom. According to= the act if a slave served= in the Connecticut militia for three years, they could be emancipated. This act may have given Dick his freedom. In 1782, Israel Putnam wrote a will without including Dick. Dick’s absence from the will may indicate that he was freed even though it wasn’t explicitly said.
After the war, Israel Putnam suffered from a severe stroke. Putnam stated that someone had to assist him daily even with mundane tasks. It is easy to assume this someone was Dick. At this time, Dick Putnam would have been around twenty-two to twenty-six years old. In the census of 1800, Dick is listed as free and has his household under his own name.
