Kate and her husband Quawk joined the Lexington church as a married couple on July 19, 1754, and appear to have been enslaved at the time.
In 1705, Massachusetts became the first New England colony to pass a law against miscegenation—the mixing of races. “An Act for the Better Preventing of a Spurious and Mixed Issue” prohibited intermarriage and fornication between white people and non-white people. This act also legalized marriage between enslaved men and women, free Black people, mixed-race people, and Native people. This act made it more difficult for enslavers to break up enslaved spouses.
On November 16, 1755, Kate and Quawk’s children, Isaac and Mary, were also baptized in the First Parish Church.
By July 11, 1756, when their third child, Abel, was baptized, Quawk and Kate had acquired their freedom and taken the surname Barbados. They likely took the name of their place of birth, which was a common practice.
Kate’s husband, Quawk Barbadoes, died on May 5, 1757.
It is noted in the Lexington Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Quawk had been enslaved by a Mr. Simonds.
Isaac Barbados, their eldest child, enlisted in the Continental Army from Woburn in 1777. From the enlistment records, it appears that Isaac was not a Woburn resident but likely a resident of Shrewsbury. He was part of the class of enlistees who were hired from time to time by Woburn to fill its quota or by private individuals to act as substitutes.

Private Isaac Barbados enlisted in April 1777 and died a few months later during the war on December 1, 1777. Private Barbados served under Capt. Edmund Munro’s company in Col. Timothy Bigelow’s regiment, the 15th Massachusetts Regiment.
Read about more Black residents of Lexington here.
Information provided by Sean Osborne.