Explore stories of 1700s-era slavery and freedom, wealth and politics, architecture, and a changing landscape.

Present-day Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site has a deep and complex history, rooted in the lands of the Massachusett Tribe. After European land claims and settlement, the Marrett family first developed the property during the British colonial era, building a home along what is now Brattle Street.

The grand Georgian mansion that stands today was constructed in 1759 for John Vassall Jr., a British subject and wealthy sugar plantation owner who enslaved hundreds of people in Jamaica and at least seven people on his Cambridge estate: Cuba, Dinah, Malcolm, William, and three children: James and two “small boys” whose names are unconfirmed.

The vast wealth of the Vassall family—and that of their neighbors—shaped the Cambridge landscape. When the loyalist Vassalls fled their home ahead of the American Revolution, the people they enslaved there seized their freedom.