Caesar Robbins (ca. 1745 – 1822) was a formerly enslaved American farmer and soldier who served in the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Co ...

during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. His legacy includes the Robbins House, a historic house museum in

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other words Arts and media * ''Concord'' (video game), a defunct 2024 first-person sh ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. His granddaughter was activist

Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark (April 14, 1823 – December 21, 1892) was an African Americans, African American educator, Abolitionism, abolitionist, and early Civil rights movement (1865–1896), Civil Rights activist, whose defiance of "whites o ...

Biography

Caesar Robbins was born in about 1745 in

Chelmsford, Massachusetts Chelmsford () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. Chelmsford was incorporated in May 1655 by an act of the Massachusetts General Court. When Chelmsford was incorporated, its local economy was fueled by lumber mills, ...

. He was enslaved at birth, but the names of his parents and enslaver remain unknown. At 16 years old, Robbins enlisted in the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...

, with his enslaver collecting his wages. He later enlisted in the

in his early 30s, gaining his emancipation either at or before this time. He may have participated in the

Battles of Lexington and Concord The Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 were the first major military actions of the American Revolutionary War between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot militias from America's Thirteen Co ...

on April 19, 1775. In 1776, he served under Captain Israel Heald in Boston and marched to

Fort Ticonderoga Fort Ticonderoga (), formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain in northern New York. It was constructed between October 1755 and 1757 by French-Canadian ...

in upstate New York in August of that year. There is also evidence Caesar was involved in battles in

Bennington, Vermont Bennington is a New England town, town in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. It is one of two shire towns (county seats) of the county, the other being Manchester (town), Vermont, Manchester. As of the 2020 United States Census, US Cens ...

. He finished his duties , before he finally moved back to Concord, Massachusetts, as a war veteran. In 1784, Robbins was 40 and living in

Carlisle, Massachusetts Carlisle is a town located northwest of Boston in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the town had a population of 5,237. History English colonists first settled the area now incorporated as the town of ...

, with his family. By 1790 he had settled on a plot of farmland in Concord in the area of Great Field. A white farmer named Humphrey Barrett owned the property but permitted Robbins to reside on it. Robbins may have married an enslaved woman named Phyllis in 1769. He married Catherine Boaz in 1777, and they remained married until her death. He subsequently married a Concord woman named Rose Bay in 1807. He had a total of six children. He died in 1822 at the approximate age of 77. Great Field was the site of settlement for many recently emancipated African Americans during this period. Concord, at the time, had what was considered a large black population, although the population in question was only near three percent.

Descendants

In 1823, Caesar Robbins' son, Peter, purchased a small farmhouse at the edge of the

Concord River The Concord River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed October 3, 2011 tributary of the Merrimack River in eastern Massachusetts, United States. The river drains a s ...

with 13 surrounding acres, a property that would become known as the Robbins House. From the 1820s until 1837, Peter resided in the home, sharing it with his wife Fatima, his sister and Caesar's daughter Susan, and Susan's husband Jack Garrison. Later they also shared the home with Susan and Jack's children. However, it was said that some of the children had passed away at a young age. Eventually, the farmhouse was sold to Fatima's relative, Peter, in 1852, whose family would be the last to live at the Robbins House. Caesar's daughter, Susan Robbins, later known as Susan Garrison, became a critical part of Concord's feminist and anti-slavery movement. She was a founding member, as well as the only known Black member, of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society (CFAS), founded in 1837. The Robbins House hosted many of the first CFAS meetings, where the committee "signed petitions against slavery, the slave trade, the

annexation of Texas The Republic of Texas was annexed into the United States and admitted to the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. The Republic of Texas declared independence from the Republic of Mexico on March 2, 1836. It applied for annexatio ...

, and the removal of the

Cherokees The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

from their homeland in the southeastern United States. usan alsolikely helped found the First African Baptist Church in Boston." She died in 1841 at about 61 years of age, but her four children carried on the work of the anti-slavery movement. Even

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon sim ...

, a Massachusetts-bound historical icon, was deeply influenced by the Robbins family and included aspects of their anti-slavery work in his writings. Robbins' granddaughter

, a pioneering civil rights activist, was born in the Robbins House.

The Robbins House

The Robbins House still stands as a historic landmark in Concord. Mass Humanities, an organization based in Massachusetts, is working with the town of Concord to uphold Caesar Robbins' history and preserve the Robbins' house. The organization takes donations for the house and volunteers to maintain it and keep an eye on the property. Concord also offers a Guided African American History Tour, where five percent of the proceeds are donated to the Robbins House. Locations of historical significance such as Caesar's Wood, Peter's Field, Brister Hill, and Walden Woods are all near the Robbins House.

References

1740s births 1822 deaths 18th-century American slaves African-American history of Massachusetts African Americans in the Continental Army People of Massachusetts in the French and Indian War Free Negroes Black Patriots People from Chelmsford, Massachusetts Military personnel from Concord, Massachusetts {{DEFAULTSORT:Robbins, Caesar Wikipedia Student Program