Charity "Duchess" Quamino was born in today’s Ghana in West Africa around 1739. She was enslaved and transported to Newport around 1754 and served in the Channing family home. In 1769, she married John Quamino, slave of Benjamin Church. Church was the grandson of Captain Benjamin Church, who fought in King Philips War. John was able to buy his freedom in 1773, and the Reverends Samuel Hopkins and Ezra Stiles sent him to Princeton to become educated so that he could serve as a missionary in Africa. Sadly, he died in battle during the American Revolution.
Reverend Stiles baptized the couple’s son, Charles, and their four daughters, Cynthia, Betty, Violet, and Katherine. Duchess earned her living as a pastry cook and came to be known as the “Pastry Queen” of Colonial Rhode Island. In 1780, she was able to buy her own freedom and that of her children. She died in 1804 and was buried in God’s Little Acre, part of the Common Burying Ground in Newport, where many enslaved and free Africans were buried in colonial times. The gravestones of her daughters, Violet and Cynthia, are next to hers. On her gravestone, Reverend William Ellery Channing described her as, "A free black of distinguished excellence, intelligent, industrious, affectionate, honest, and of exemplary piety."
Biography provided by Keith Stokes, Rhode Island Black Heritage Society
Image courtesy of Sandra Smith
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