Plymouth County, Massachusetts Freeperson Families in 1790
Mary Blauss Edwards has researched every person of color who was listed as a head of household in Plymouth County in the 1790 Census—the first Federal Census of the new United States. Taken seven years after the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, Tufts University Associate Professor Kerri Greenidge points out that this census illustrates the “fluidity of racial categories in Massachusetts.”