Waldo Emerson: Enslaver
Waldo Emerson (great-uncle to the Transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson) was born in 1736 in Malden, Massachusetts, the son and grandson of Congregational ministers. In 1757, at age twenty-one, he moved to Kennebunk and in 1759 married Olive Hill.
Emerson built a prosperous life at the Landing—trading West Indies goods, investing in shipbuilding, and accumulating property that made him “a rich man,” as historian Edward Bourne later recorded. His standing was affirmed by his position in the new Congregational church and his role as tax collector. Emerson died in 1774 at age thirty-eight after an illness, and Olive died shortly thereafter.
from Waldo Emerson’s estate inventory, page 19
Among the entries in Emerson’s estate inventory, listed just before his horses, appears a stark reminder of the human cost of that prosperity:
“1 Negro wench called Phillis £30.0.0.”
The West Indies trade that contributed to Emerson’s wealth was part of a larger Atlantic system dependent on enslaved labor. The goods he sold—molasses, sugar, and rum—were produced on plantations where thousands of Africans were enslaved. Phillis’s inclusion in Emerson’s household reveals how that same system extended into New England homes, connecting local prosperity to the realities of slavery throughout the Atlantic world.
The Waldo Emerson Inn
What is now Kennebunk’s Waldo Emerson Inn was built in 1753 by Waldo Emerson. Emerson’s grand-nephew, Ralph Waldo Emerson is believed to have spent as many as ten summers at the house, which was originally smaller before Theodore Lyman added a substantial wing in 1784. Lyman amassed a fortune through the West Indies trade, and some accounts suggest that his vessels may have been involved in the slave trade.
While many people remember Ralph Waldo Emerson as an abolitionist for his moral denunciations of slavery, scholars today take a more nuanced view. They note that, despite his occasional expressions of anti-slavery sympathy, Emerson’s broader philosophy contributed to the construction of whiteness in nineteenth-century America. In her essay “Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Saxons” (2009), historian Nell Irvin Painter describes him as the “philosopher-king” of American white race theory, arguing that he celebrated Anglo-Saxon people as inherently superior—embodying freedom, manliness, and civilization. Painter contends that Emerson’s abolitionist impulses were inconsistent, and that his larger body of work remained shaped by hierarchical racial thought.
Reflection Questions:
How did the goods and profits from the West Indies trade shape households like the Emersons?
Where and how might Waldo Emerson have acquired an enslaved person? How did he reconcile this with his religious beliefs?
This research was compiled as part of the Just History Walk: Lives Between Two Rivers which took place on November 8, 2025. For more information about this walk, click here. For more research related to this area, click on the tags below. To download a hi-res version of the poster below for educational use, please contact where@atlanticblackbox.com.
Poster design by Meadow Dibble