In Aaron Michael Hoggle’s article “‘I Have Bestowed a Livery:’ An Enslaved Boy in English Servant’s Dress in Colonial South Carolina”, the titular boy remains nameless. What we do know is that the boy–likely around nine or ten–worked under Elizabeth Massingberd Hyrne, a wealthy English widow and merchant planter, as a personal servant and social escort. For the elite white society of colonial South Carolina, Elizabeth’s “liveried boy” functioned as a status symbol, a human objectification that gestured at her gentility and elitism much like the decorative aspects of her home. Meanwhile Elizabeth’s livery stripped the young boy of his childhood, replacing it both physically and metaphysically with the stuffy, restrictive uniform of a faceless English servant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In using a wide variety of sources and a speculative narrative approach, Hoggle revives the life and identity of the “liveried boy” as a unique figure in the British Atlantic world, one that accessed the white Anglo-American networks of the colonies while still existing under the thumb of mass enslavement. Hoggle’s article appears in 19.3 of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth<\/em><\/strong>, published in October 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for such a thought-provoking article. To begin, how does your work on the liveried boy fit and\/or develop the historiography of enslaved children and young people? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This article was born out of a conference paper presented at the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture conference in June of 2025. The panel I participated in focused on \u201cChildhood in Vast Early America\u201d and it honestly was not until then that I even thought seriously about childhood as being a category of historical analysis. I suppose beforehand, I fell into the same historical mindset of children being seen and not heard \u2013 especially in the archive. But children are everywhere in the early modern archive when you look for them. They are on ships, they are in houses, in fields, in churches, in coaches, in schools, they listen, see, and feel, and they are written about \u2013 even those that are enslaved. When Elizabeth wrote her 1725 letter from South Carolina to her English brother in London, she simply told him that she had bought a boy and dressed him in a livery to be her personal servant. That is all we get about the liveried boy and the nature of his enslavement. For historians, that is not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The liveried boy deserved to have his story told and part of that journey for me was an immersion in what childhood was like in the early modern period for children both enslaved and free. So in this article, I try to show the different facets of enslaved childhood in this period. From the materiality and meaning of their clothing and the nature of their specialized enslaved labor, to their friendship and family networks, even to their playtime and imagination, enslaved children were still children trapped in an excruciatingly cruel system that even enslaved adults found hopeless. However, just as their adult counterparts would, enslaved children demonstrated acts of agency by running away and practicing varying degrees of resistance themselves. I hope that by highlighting the liveried boy\u2019s existence and deconstructing what his life may have been like \u2013 along with the social systems he encounters throughout his life \u2013 will make some small contribution to the historiography of enslaved children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You open your article by referring to the ongoing scholarly \u201canalysis of many different childhoods happening simultaneously in colonial America\u201d, particularly the inherent violence or lack of childhood in young enslaved experiences. What do you think specifically defined childhood in this era, and what do you think was particularly lacking for enslaved children? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Childhood in this period was precarious with threats of disease, mortality, and the ever-present nature of death seemingly always looming. There must have been a constant anxiety for parents of younger children concerned for their very survival. I believe much of this dictated early modern family formation in terms of having enough children to ensure that a few survive infancy and childhood. In terms of the many differing childhoods, I think we need to look at what children meant to the family unit. For elite whites, children were essentially born to be heirs and pawns in forging family alliances to protect generational wealth. For the enslaved, children were a dichotomy. The same familial bonds were present for enslaved people, however children were often bought, sold, and separated from their family units making their prolonged connection to family uncertain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We do not know if the liveried boy\u2019s parents were also enslaved by Elizabeth, if he was bought from another plantation and separated from his family, or if he was the sole survivor of his family unit during the Middle Passage, but each one of these scenarios would have created a different childhood for him. There is innate trauma present in each scenario. Though we want to protect the innocence and fragile development of children, oftentimes in this period children were faced with very adult situations that had adult outcomes. So, defining childhood in this particular era is no small task and much of what we associate with a \u201cnormal childhood\u201d today simply cannot be applied to the children of the early eighteenth-century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s discuss the relationship between Elizabeth and her liveried boy as a form of objectification, even ornamentation. Why do we see relationships between white women and Black children so often in histories of this time, and what can it uniquely tell us about colonial America?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Elizabeth\u2019s first exposure to the dynamic of elite white women enslaving Black children would most certainly have come from her upbringing in England. While much of the study of slavery tends to focus on the Caribbean or the British American Colonies (and rightly so under most circumstances), we need to make sure that we include Britain in the study of the diaspora of slavery. With this in mind, I am not sure that Elizabeth and the liveried boy\u2019s dynamic tells us as much about colonial America as it does about early modern Britain. After all, Elizabeth was in fact English as were many of her friends and neighbors in colonial South Carolina. So it is difficult for me to analyze her under the cultural constructs we deem to be \u201ccolonial American\u201d because she would not have thought of herself that way. She was simply an elite English woman using a liveried boy to outwardly show her status in a different place. It was the same mechanism, the same meaning, just an ocean away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe the reason we see this trope of elite white women with their liveried Black boys many times and in many places stems from the idea of bringing the metropole into the periphery. What is deemed elite in Britain is disseminated throughout its colonial empire. The very act of enslaving is part of empire building. For these women, displaying an enslaved child in this particular role is not only translated as an affluent connection to the exotic, but also a conquering of the \u201cother\u201d and a visual cue to empire expansion. Likewise, the British American Colonies were part of that peripheral empire and their connection to the metropole can be seen here, even through an unnamed liveried boy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Explain your decision to use Olaudah Equiano\u2019s memoirs \u201cto provide the liveried boy a voice\u201d and\u2013if I may paraphrase\u2013fill in the blanks of his experiences.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n While we cannot say with absolute certainty exactly what the liveried boy experienced, we certainly cannot ignore his existence \u2013 as historians of the past may have done with no solid evidence to the contrary. But what we can do is offer as many possibilities of what his life may have been like as we can and through that analysis \u2013 following every trail \u2013 we can come up with an informed view of what may have been (and possibly was) his experience. This is why I use the stories of Bob (who held the position as postilion boy to Elizabeth\u2019s step-daughter) and Paul (who worked as an enslaved domestic boy in the same household as Bob) along with Olaudah\u2019s memoirs. We understand that the liveried boy could have been like Bob working as a liveried postilion, or he could have been like Paul hiding in the gap between floors of the plantation house. Bob and Paul give us actions that the liveried boy may have taken throughout his life while Olaudah\u2019s memoirs give us a voice to explain how an enslaved boy may have felt under similar conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the process of preparing the article, I knew that I only had one sentence that directly referenced the liveried boy. And while I wanted to explore his life in detail, I nearly abandoned the project because it just seemed impossible. Then I remembered Olaudah Equiano\u2019s narrative (I had not read it for some time) but I recalled him writing about his childhood in part of the memoir. So, I revisited Olaudah\u2019s narrative with the liveried boy in mind and it was absolutely heartbreaking to envision Olaudah\u2019s words alongside the liveried boy\u2019s lived experience. The emotion, the action, the reaction, and the context brought everything into focus. When we write history, part of ourselves will always be connected to our historical subjects and I think about Bob, Paul, Olaudah, and the liveried boy quite often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What other practices should historians\/researchers use to recover silent voices? How can we dive deeper into speculative narratives?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We know that these marginalized people existed and that their life experiences were just not recorded by those in the past who were creating the archives we have now (which were essentially diplomatic and aided in empire building). However, written documents – even reading against the grain – can only get us so far. That is when considering material culture as an alternate source comes into play. Objects, and how people used them, can tell us a lot about someone’s lived experience. In terms of the enslaved boy’s livery, it gives us the ability to place him within the context of what a livery was meant for within that time and place, and how the individual wearing it should perform. It can tell us what his duties would have been and the nature of his enslaved labor. Those things are not written down in Elizabeth’s letters, but we can build them out from what we do know and by looking at those who have had similar experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speculative narratives can be controversial because you have an entire school of historians that focus the entirety of their work on facts backed up by direct sources (which is, of course, what we wish that we had for every history), but this method invariably pushes them to write and rewrite about prominent white men and frankly, that is too easy, limits interpretation, and is boring. The archives offer many different perspectives when they are read in different ways and alternate sources are used in cohesion. For speculative narratives to work, they\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to be backed up by very sound secondary scholarship and an interpretive framework that allows the archive to speak into all of the different possibilities that could (and would) have been. If I wrote the history of the liveried boy in the traditional sense his story would have ended with the sentence-ending period in Elizabeth\u2019s letter as that was the only direct evidence I had to his existence. But his existence, his experience, and his role in the development of the Atlantic world was worth exploring even if that meant considering the possibilities alongside the concrete evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clothing and physical presentation is obviously key to our understanding of the livery boy. What does your article reveal or tell us about the body and physicality of children and young people?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Clothing during this period (as with our own) is attached to social identity. For the liveried boy, his costume allowed him to perform a particular function in Atlantic society. People would see him and his livery and immediately know that he directly served his mistress. The livery allowed him access into places by her side where other enslaved people would have been told to wait outside or places where they would not have dared to go. When Elizabeth was conducting various business transactions in and around Charleston in relation to selling Atlantic market goods, the livery would have been the enslaved boy\u2019s ticket to be present during those transactions and more importantly those conversations that were taking place in those spaces. So, the livery was of course a sign and symbol of Elizabeth\u2019s own claims to gentility, but it also provided a physical indicator allowing the liveried boy a more expansive mobility through that direct connection to his mistress that would not have been seen in enslaved people who were bound to field labor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The livery would have also directly affected the enslaved boy\u2019s physicality from the very nature of the layers, buttons, and ties. Each layer an added heat, each button and tie a restriction to movement, bodily autonomy, and freedom itself. If the enslaved boy had survived the Middle Passage and lived the first several years of his life in Africa where the custom was to wear lighter fabrics with less inhibiting styles, the stark contrast of a woolen coat with sleeves and linings in the Carolina heat would have been stifling and a cruel extension of bondage itself. Additionally, the liveried boy would have been expected to keep his costume clean and tidy as a public reflection of his enslaver, a restriction limiting playtime and interactions with other children. Clothing displayed many nonverbal signs and symbols in this period and the livery would have been a fully realized and deeply contextual early modern costume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can you speak more on how social performance operated alongside age, race, class, and gender, and how this analysis might challenge the colloquial idea of colonial America?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking specifically at colonial America, there has been a lot of work on white women and enslaved men and this underlying tension of sexual violence. The contemporary perception was that enslaved men had an uncontrollable sexual appetite and white women were easy victims that needed saving by white men \u2013 however, this trope was likely more of a social warning against interracial sexual relationships than anything else. In the case of Elizabeth and the liveried boy, childhood played a crucial role in the performance of his duties. As a prepubescent, the sexual violence factor was taken out, and the liveried boy\u2019s ability to move within intimate spaces occupied by white women became a vital component to his enslavement to Elizabeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Age was a primary factor in the liveried boy\u2019s assignment, just like his assignment was a primary factor in signaling Elizabeth\u2019s social status in the colonies. Given that Elizabeth\u2019s exposure to the status marker of elite white women with their liveried Black boy servants came from the London metropole, her incorporation of this practice in colonial South Carolina would have established the same visual clues to her elite identity in transatlantic contexts. It is also important to recognize her status as a widow of means in contrast to the rather less exalted \u201cTown Misse\u201d who embodied similar traits in order to reflect higher social orders, neither of which would exist without the enslaved Black boys in their liveries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The ways that the liveried boy found some semblance of resistance and agency through his community, his friendships, and his self-presentation are particularly heart-wrenching. Is this tension special to the livery boy? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I had no direct evidence of the liveried boy\u2019s resistance or his relationships with his community, friends, or his self-presentation. But introducing him alongside other enslaved boys \u2013 Bob, Paul, and Olaudah \u2013 who all have significantly more left in the archive, gives us the ability to see what was possible for an enslaved liveried boy. In terms of his direct community, we know that at the time Elizabeth bestowed his livery, the enslaved boy lived on her Tugadoo plantation with eight enslaved adults. It is unknown if his parents were among the eight, but he most certainly established some form of community with them. Bob and Paul lived at a neighboring plantation owned by Elizabeth\u2019s step-daughter and given their ages and likelihood of coming into contact with Elizabeth\u2019s liveried boy, they possibly made up his extended friendship group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is probably most difficult to answer what the liveried boy must have thought about his self-presentation. Many of the feelings of loneliness and isolation in childhood that Olaudah expressed in his memoirs were possibly felt by the liveried boy, but it is impossible to say for sure. The livery itself was a much finer garment than field clothes, though he may not have felt finer given the layers required to style it. In the social order, he would have certainly looked like a Black boy with wealthy connections and direct links to the planter elite, however we will never know exactly how he felt about it or if he recognized himself as superior to other enslaved children. But I can say for certainty that his experience as a liveried boy was not limited to him alone. Many Black boys were enslaved to perform this same role and I am sure they all recognized each other \u2013 if not in name, most definitely in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To end on a personal note, we\u2019d like to ask you about a few of your favorite things\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Favorite way of managing notes and\/or citations?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I doubt this is the most efficient way, but I honestly write everything out by hand first. Every sentence, every note, every citation, everything is scribbled into a notebook in the roughest draft phase. Then, when I type everything into a word processing program that automatically becomes my first edited revision where I can play around with organization and style while also managing those notes and citations that were written in the notebook along with the text. There are also times where I remember book covers over anything else and I will make a little note in the citation \u201cthat book with the yellow cover with the tree roots, the chapter in the middle\u201d to prompt me to find the full citation later, and it keeps me in the flow of writing until I can get to a good stopping point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Best book in the history of childhood and youth you\u2019ve read in the past year? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Engaging Children in Vast Early America<\/em>, edited by Julia M. Gossard and Holly N.S. White, was a pivotal resource for this article. They assembled a group of essays examining the many different roles of childhood in indigenous, African, and European interactions across the Americas. Their introduction really put into perspective for me the nature of childhood and how each child experienced very different things making concrete definitions of their lives difficult to pinpoint. The fascinating thing about their book, linking all of the essays together, is this idea that children were caught up in times and places where cultures were changing, merging, and evolving, and it is through the lens of childhood we can glean new and interesting perspectives on empire building across vast early America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n