Mark, legally owned by John Codman, was gibbeted (hung in chains) in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on September 18, 1755. Mark’s crime was providing the poison that killed Codman to Phillis and Phebe, fellow slaves. Mark complained that the “Negro women … wickedly enticed” him to do so.

Mark claimed that Phebe “was an Evidencer in Behalf of the King,” but she did not testify at trial. Phebe was sold out of New England. Phillis and Mark were convicted of treason against their master, then executed in front of a large crowd. Phillis was burned at the stake, and Mark was hung up to die slowly, becoming a public exhibit, serving as a large warning to refrain from killing one’s enslavers.

Paul Revere’s famous Ride was almost interrupted on April 18, 1775, when he encountered two British officers “nearly opposite … where Mark was hung in chains.” By 1775, Mark was only a skeleton. Kostra Kennedy reports that Mark’s remains were taken down soon after Revere’s Ride (The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America (2025))

The North was significantly involved with slavery in colonial days, including the 1641 Massachusetts law that legalized lifetime enslavement and ownership. The North had no small amount of the enslaver’s fear of rebellious slaves, and their ability to disrupt civilization by taking their own actions.