Zoe Hume, PhD student, Florida State University
Appreciating the life of Obour Collins (also known as Obour Tanner) requires reading between the lines. Obour is most often associated with the celebrated author and poet Phillis Wheatley. The two maintained correspondence over many years with the oldest known letter dating back to 1772. Their friendship has been well-studied; however, none of Obour’s letters to Phillis appear to have survived, nor has any of Obour’s own writing been uncovered. This lacuna in the record has led to an array of assumptions about Obour’s life: claims have been made that she was born in Africa,[1] that her friendship with Phillis may have begun when they were forced onto the same slave ship,[2] and that she was not Phillis’ intellectual equal.[3] While we may not be able to study writing in Obour’s own hands, the surviving documentary record offers glimpses of her rich family and community life in Newport.
The first known instance of Obour in the historical record is her baptism in Newport’s First Congregational Church. On July 10, 1768, Reverend Samuel Hopkins baptized Obour and admitted her to the Church, recording her as “Obour Tanner, servant of James Tanner.”[4] Some have incorrectly assumed Obour was enslaved by Newport silversmith John Tanner, the brother of James Tanner. John Tanner did enslave at least one person, a man named Scipio, whom he freed in his will.[5]
James Tanner’s participation in the slave trade went beyond his enslavement of Obour; he also engaged in the sale and investment side of the trade. On October 17, 1758, an auction advertisement he placed in the Mercury boasted the sale of "a parcel of healthy new Negro Men, Women, and Boys" from Africa. Records also reveal that he was in business with William and Samuel Vernon, prominent Newport merchants who profited from the slave trade.[6]
Though no copies of Obour’s letters to Phillis or anyone else have surfaced, Phillis makes it clear in her correspondence that Obour writes back, indicating that Obour was an educated, literate woman. Obour’s literacy and interest in the arts are further supported by a letter Phillis wrote to Reverend Samuel Hopkins, where she asks him to set aside two copies of her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral for Obour.[7]
Obour’s place of birth is currently unknown. However, there are some indications that she might have been born in Africa. The strongest piece of evidence is her name. “Obour” is an Akan name meaning stone. Many Akan people lived, and continue to live, in present-day Ghana, which was the center of the British slave trade in West Africa known as the Gold Coast at the time.
Author Martha Bacon claimed Obour once told Harriet Beecher Stowe that she and Phillis survived the Middle Passage together on the same ship but did not officially meet until the summer of 1770 when Mary Wheatley, Phillis’ enslaver, visited Newport.[8] Bacon acknowledged there was no known evidence to support this claim.
Some of Phillis’ comments in her letters to Obour have also been used to suggest Obour was born in Africa. For example, on May 19, 1772, Phillis Wheatly also wrote to Obour (spelled Arbour), “let us rejoice in and adore the wonders of God's infinite Love in bringing us from a land semblant of darkness itself….” Phillis was clearly a deeply religious person, and some believe Obour was as well.
During the Revolutionary War, Obour traveled with the Tanner family from Newport to Worcester[1] [2] , likely in response to the British occupation of Newport, during which half of the city’s population fled. By 1778, the Tanner family and Obour were living in Worcester. The details of Obour’s day-to-day life, both in Worcester and Newport, are unknown, although it is likely that she would have spent much of her time with James’ wife Sarah.[9] As an enslaved woman, Obour would likely have been tasked with menial domestic chores such as sweeping, carrying water, emptying chamber pots, cooking and baking, sewing and mending, and laundry.[10]
In 1799, Obour was still enslaved by the Tanners in Worcester;[11] she may have remained there until after Sarah Tanner’s death in 1785. According to Sarah’s obituary, her death was sudden, and she does not appear to have left a will[12] This makes it difficult to know if Obour was freed following Sarah’s death, if she had been freed upon the death of James Tanner in 1782 (Obour is not mentioned in any of James’ estate documents), or if her freedom came sometime later.
Although the timeline of her freedom status is unclear, by 1790 Obour had returned to Newport; on November 4, 1790, she married Barra Collins within the First Congregational Church.[13] The details of Barra’s life are largely unknown. His name is spelled Barra, Barre, Barry, Barrey, Burry, and Barier at various points in the historical record. It is possible he was illiterate; his will, which contains both the spellings Barry and Barre, is signed with an “X.”[14]
Barre was listed as a member of the African Benevolent Society in their records,[15] though his name does not appear in their regular minutes so he may not have been an active participant. Obour, on the other hand, was the president of the African Female Benevolent Society, according to a letter written to the men’s society in 1809.[16] In the letter, Obour’s name appears spelled “Orbour.”
Records suggest Obour and Barre had at least two children. In his will, Barre leaves his estate to his “loving Obour Collins” and, after Obour’s death, to his daughter Sally and son James. In 1800, the census reported the household of “Burry Collins” contained a total of four people, likely Burry (or Barre), Obour, Sally, and James. By 1810, census records show that Barre’s household contained only two people, likely himself and Obour. Finally, in 1820, a census record for the household of Orbour Collins contained only one person: a “colored” female upwards of 45 years old.
Barre Collins’ will was presented in open court on September 2, 1816, indicating he died sometime before then. Obour lived alone following Barre’s death; however, by 1830 she was likely living with someone else, as she does not appear on the census that year. It is also not clear where James and Sally were living at this point. Census records do not show a Black James Collins in Rhode Island at this time nor a Sally Collins, though Sally could have married and changed her name. Before 1850, census takers only documented the head of household, making it impossible to discern from the census alone the whereabouts of Obour, James, and Sally.
While details of Obour’s life are known, the only known physical description of Obour comes from Katherine Edes, the wife of William Henry Beecher. In 1863, Katherine donated six of Phillis’ letters to Obour to the Massachusetts Historical Society, along with a letter explaining how they came into her possession: “They were given to me ages since by the person to whom they were addressed. She was then a very little, very old, very infirm, very, very black woman, with a great shock of the whitest of wool all over her head,—a picture well photographed on my mind's eye. She died in the odor of sanctity, sometime in 1833 or '4, an uncommonly pious, sensible, and intelligent woman, respected and visited by every person in Newport who could appreciate excellence.”[17]
Obour Collins died on June 21, 1835.[18] Her death does not appear to have been announced in any newspapers, and she has no known will. As far as records go, it appears the only notice of her death is in the First Congregational Church’s record book. In fact, this record appears right below her baptism 67 years earlier, and “this single line bookends the life of Obour Tanner in the documentary record.”[19]
[1] Benjamin Quarles, "A Phillis Wheatley Letter," The Journal of Negro History 34, no. 4 (1949): 463, doi:10.2307/2715610.
[2] Martha S. Bacon, Puritan Promenade (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964), 34,
https://archive.org/details/puritanpromenade0000unse.
[3] John C. Shields, Phillis Wheatley's Poetics of Liberation: Backgrounds and Contexts (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008), 130.
[4]
EV03759; First Congregational Church Marriages and Baptisms, Vol.832, pp. 27 and 50, Newport Historical Society.
[5] John Tanner, Newport Probate, Vol. 1, pp. 225-226.
[6] For instance, on April 28, 1772, Captain Peter Smith wrote to the Vernon brothers and James while at sea. After his death on April 8, 1782, James’ son Helyer Tanner settled James’ affairs with William and Samuel. (See Vernon family records, 1738-1829, Col. 165, 72.272a-b and Col. 165, 84.93, the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Delaware; Account of claims against the estate of James Tanner, Vol 26., p. 203, Probate Files, Worcester County, Massachusetts, 1731-1925, available through FamilySearch.)
[7] Phillis Wheatley letter to Samuel Hopkins, 1774, Simon Gratz collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania Digital Library,
https://digitallibrary.hsp.org/index.php/Detail/objects/13755.
[8] Letter from Phillis Wheatley to Obour Tanner, May 19, 1772, Charles Roberts Autograph Letter collection, TriCollege Libraries Digital Collections,
https://digitalcollections.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/object/hc175106.
[9] In one of her letters, Phillis Whealthy writes, “I am exceedingly glad to hear from you by Mrs. Tanner, and wish you had timely notice of her departure, so as to have wrote me….” (See Letter from Phillis Wheatley to Obour Tanner, 29 May 1778, MHS Collections Online,
https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=777&br=1.)
[10] Catherine Adams and Elizabeth H. Pleck, Love of Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 34.
[11] The last known letter between Obour and Phillis was dated May 10, 1779. (See Letter from Phillis Peters [Phillis Wheatley] to Obour Tanner, 10 May 1779, MHS Collections Online,
https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=778&br=1.)
[12] A death notice for Sarah Tanner appeared in the Massachusetts Spy (or the Worcester Gazette) on September 22, 1785: “In Worcester, on Monday last, suddenly, Mrs. Sarah Tanner, aged 73, relict of Mr. James Tanner, late of Newport, Rhode Island.”
[13]
EV03799; First Congregational Church Marriages and Baptisms, Vol.832, p. 18, Newport Historical Society.
[14] Barre Collins probate, 1816, Newport Town Probate, Vol. 5, pp. 305-306.
[15]
EV03838; Minutes of the African Benevolent Society, Vol.1674A, p. 13, Newport Historical Society.
[16]
EV03872; Minutes of the African Benevolent Society, Vol.1674A, p. 33, Newport Historical Society.
[17] Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1863-1864 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1864), 268, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Proceedings_of_the_Massachusetts_Histori/sSSInFiUy98C?hl=en&gbpv=0.
[18]
EV03760; First Congregational Church Marriages and Baptisms, Vol.832, p. 28, Newport Historical Society.
[19] Amelia Yeager, "History Bytes: Reading Between the Lines for Obour Tanner," Newport Historical Society, July 28, 2023,
https://newporthistory.org/history-bytes-reading-between-the-lines-for-obour-tanner/.