Site of Thomas Aves Home

This is the site of Thomas Aves's home on Pinckney Street.

NPS Photo/Woods

Quick Facts

Location:

21 Pinckney Street

OPEN TO PUBLIC:

No

MANAGED BY:

Private Residence

Likely not the original structure, 21 Pinckney Street served as the home of Thomas Aves in the 1830s. During the summer of 1836, Thomas Aves's daughter, Mary Aves Slater, traveled from her home in New Orleans, Louisiana to visit Aves. Upon her departure from New Orleans, Slater made the critical decision to bring a six-year-old enslaved girl named Med with her on the journey, leaving Med’s mother behind. Slater traveled from Louisiana, a slave state, to the state of Massachusetts, which legally abolished slavery in 1783. 

In August 1836, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society learned of Med’s presence in the home of Thomas Aves at 21 Pinckney Street. Historical records suggest that members of the Society posed as Sunday School recruiters in order to gain access to the home of Thomas Aves. Member Lydia Maria Child recalled, “We obtained all the evidence we wanted, carried it to a lawyer, who petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus; the judge granted the petition; and the man who held little Med in custody was brought up for trial.”  

On August 27, 1836, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw presided over the case Commonwealth v. Aves, ultimately ruling that enslaved people brought to Massachusetts by their enslavers could not be held against their will. Shaw’s ruling removed Med from the institution of slavery, but due to her young age, Med was placed in the care of the Samaritan Asylum for Indigent Children in Boston. Commonwealth v. Aves set an important legal precedent for free states and served as a landmark victory for the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. However, the newly emancipated Med never reunited with her mother and died two years later at the Asylum. 

Sources

Weierman, Karen Woods. The Case of the Slave-Child, Med: Free Soil in Antislavery Boston. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2019.