Black New England
This page features a small selection of UConn library and external resources to support learning and research pertaining to Black history in Connecticut and New England. This list is meant to be exploratory and is not a comprehensive representation or list of the library's holdings.
For additional assistance, please contact Samuel Boss, at samuel.boss@uconn.edu.
New England - General
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African American Historic Burial Grounds and Gravesites of New England
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Documents burial sites of African Americans--both enslaved and free--in each of the New England states and uncovers how they came to their final resting places. The author's examination of burial sites and grave markers reveals clues that help document the lives of Black New Englanders from the 1640s to the early 1900s -- Provided by publisher.
Call Number: E185.917 .K58 2016ISBN: 9780786470112Publication Date: 2015-12-10 -
Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution
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An historical and archaeological overview of African American life from the early 18th to mid-20th centuries in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York.
Call Number: E269.N3 K36 1989ISBN: 0870236628Publication Date: 1989-09-01 -
Harriet Wilson's New England
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Examines the life and literary works of Harriet E. Wilson, a biracial woman who wrote what is considered the first fictional novel published by an African American woman. The novel, published in 1859, describes the abuse and servitude she endured as a young Black girl in the "free" North.
Call Number: PS3334.W39 Z69 2007ISBN: 9781584656418Publication Date: 2007-08-31 -
Jim Crow north : the struggle for equal rights in antebellum New England
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Examines the Northern struggle to overcome Jim Crow during the antebellum period through sit-ins, boycotts, and petition drives. Interracial coalition attempted to desegregate schools, transportation, and churches, while working to enfranchise Black communities and protect those fleeing enslavement from being recaptured.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 0190676663Publication Date: 2017 -
Love of Freedom: Black women in colonial and revolutionary New England
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Explores how African women in colonial and revolutionary New England sought legal emancipation from slavery and defined freedom more broadly to include spiritual, familial, and economic dimensions.
Call Number: E443 .A33 2010ISBN: 9780195389098Publication Date: 2010-02-01 -
To Heal the Scourge of Prejudice: the life and writings of Hosea Easton
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An examination of racism and racial prejudice in American culture, written by Hosea Easton, a Black abolitionist, minister, and leader of the convention movement in New England.
Call Number: E185.18 .E27 1999ISBN: 0585310742Publication Date: 1999-01-01
Connecticut
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The African-American Experience in Nineteenth-Century Connecticut
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Historical analysis of Black American experiences in Connecticut told through primary sources, focusing on first-hand accounts from African Americans commenting on the racial issues of their time.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780739188637Publication Date: 2014-01-01 -
African American Connecticut Explored
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A collection of essays documenting African American history in Connecticut from the state's colonization around 1630 and into the 20th century.
Call Number: E185.93.C7 A47 2013ISBN: 9780819574008Publication Date: 2014-01-27 -
The Amistad Revolt
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Published by the Amistad Committee in New Haven, Connecticut, this book uses historic records to document and analyze the Amistad uprising of 1839. During the uprising, captive Africans aboard the Spanish ship, La Amistad, revolted and overtook the captain and crew. They were eventually re-captured, arrested, and tried for murder in the landmark Supreme Court case, United States vs. Amistad. The Court decided in favor of the revolutionaries; 33 surviving men returned to their homeland.
Call Number: E447 .A57 1993ISBN: 1279643854Publication Date: 1993 -
Black Roots in Southeastern Connecticut 1650-1900
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Published by the New London County Historical Society; examines records from twenty-seven towns in southeastern Connecticut for references to African Americans.
Call Number: E185.93.C7 B76ISBN: 0810314118Publication Date: 1980-04-01 -
A Century in Captivity: the life and trials of Prince Mortimer, a Connecticut slave
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Recounts the lifelong captivity of Prince Mortimer, who was born around 1730 in Guinea and enslaved in the US. In 1811, at the age of 87, he was sentenced to life in prison for attempting to poison his enslaver with arsenic. Prince spent 16 years in Connecticut's notorious Newgate Prison and was later transferred to Wethersfield State Prison, where he died in 1834 at the age of 110.
Call Number: E444.M67 C37 2006ISBN: 1584655399Publication Date: 2006-02-28 -
Connecticut's Black Soldiers, 1775-1783
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Examines the role of Black soldiers in the American Revolution, where close to 5,000 Black people fought against the British, while others served as laborers, spies, and guides. The book offers a corrective to the falsehood that Black people were not contributors to the war or the establishment of the United States.
Call Number: Connecticut Documents - Level B ; 7-Am3.5: 4ISBN: 0871061198Publication Date: 2017-12-01 -
Fortune's Bones: the manumission requiem
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Examines the life and posthumous legacy of Fortune, an enslaved man who lived in Waterbury, Connecticut in the late 1700s. Following his death in 1798, Fortune's enslaver, Dr. Porter, preserved his skeleton to further the study of anatomy. Fortune's skeleton is in the Mattaatuck Museum in Waterbury, where it is still being studied.
Call Number: Special Collections C6587ISBN: 1932425128Publication Date: 2004-11-01 -
Hopes and Expectations: the origins of the black middle class in Hartford
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Chronicles the story of three young African Americans in the North -- Rebecca Primus, Addie Brown, and Nelson Brown -- based on over two hundred personal letters from the 1860s. Letters describe their daily lives and touch on race, class, gender, religion, and politics, offering rare entry into individual Black lives at the time.
Call Number: F104.H3 B44 2017ISBN: 9781438461656Publication Date: 2017-01-13 -
King Leopold's Soliloquy: a defense of his Congo rule
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A satirical pamphlet by Mark Twain on the gruesome realities of Belgian colonization and genocide in the Congo. Mark Twain lived in Hartford, Connecticut from 1874 to 1891.
Call Number: DT652 .C62 1905bISBN: 1646793102Publication Date: 2020-12-22 -
Life of James Mars: a slave born and sold in Connecticut
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Chronicles the life of James Mars and centers around the struggle between northern and southern ideas of slavery, a struggle embodied by the marriage of Mars' enslavers -- Rev. Thompson and his wife, from Canaan, Connecticut and Virginia, respectively.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 1409988090Publication Date: 2009-11-01 -
Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave: brought down to the present time
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Narrative of the life of William Grimes, an enslaved man and son of his enslaver -- a wealthy, White plantation owner from Virginia, named Benjamin Grimes. Williams had been sold and transported over 10 times across Virginia, Maryland and Georgia. He suffered abuse in the house and in the fields. In 1814, he escaped by stowing away on a ship bound for New York and eventually settled in New Haven, Connecticut. Eventually, he was discovered and forced to buy his freedom.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 0195343328Publication Date: 2000 -
The Slaves of Central Fairfield County
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Historical examination of the harsh reality endured by enslaved people in the North alongside anti-slavery activity. The author presents a comprehensive analysis of rural enslavement in 18th and early 19th century Connecticut.
Call Number: E445.C7 C78 2007ISBN: 9781596291515Publication Date: 2007-02-28 -
Tapestry: a living history of the Black family in southeastern Connecticut
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Historical overview of African Americans in southeastern Connecticut from 1680 to 1865. Volume 1 focuses on the arrival of Black people in Connecticut, the first Black family, and the roles Black Americans played in the Revolutionary and Civil wars. Areas included are: Groton, East Haddam, New London, Chatham, and Hebron. Volume 2 chronicles prominent Black families, including: Beman, Boham, Bush, Freeman, Hallan, Hyde, Jacklin, Jackson, Lathrop, Magira, Mason, moody, Peters, Quash, Rogers, and Wright.
Call Number: E185.93.C7 R67ISBN: 9780806352145Publication Date: 1979-01-01 -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
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The most controversial anti-slavery novel of the antebellum period and a best-seller credited with intensifying conflict leading to the Civil War. Harriet Beecher Stowe spent the last 23 years of her life in Hartford, Connecticut.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 0674054679Publication Date: 2009-04-15 -
Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom
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Venture Smith first published his autobiography in New London, Connecticut in 1798. His brief but dramatic account gives evidence to Connecticut's colonial migrations and trade between England, the West Indies, and Africa. Smith recounts his journey from Africa, through his capture, enslavement, and eventual emancipation.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 1558497404Publication Date: 2010-06-30
Maine
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The Life and Sufferings of Leonard Black, a Fugitive from Slavery
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Born in Maryland around 1820, Leonard Black was enslaved for over twenty years. In his autobiography, he writes of the cruelties he endured at the hands of his enslavers. In 1836, he converted to Christianity and became a minister. Shortly thereafter, he escaped enslavement and fled to Boston, Mass. and later Portland, Maine in 1837. Several years later, he moved to Providence, Rhode Island.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 1522797130Publication Date: 2000 -
Light and Truth
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Lewis was a Black Native author, inventor, and entrepreneur from Pittston, Maine. First published in 1836, Light and Truth is the first historical account of African Americans and Native Americans, while also representing an early example of Black liberation theology.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 1330462173Publication Date: 1844 -
Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs
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Phebe Ann Jacobs was born in enslavement in Morris County, New Jersey in 1785. As a child, she was given the wife of the President of Dartmouth College, to be an attendant to their daughter, Maria Malleville. When Maria married the President of Bowdoin College and moved to Brunswick, Maine, Phebe was forced to move with her. Phebe remained enslaved until Maria's death, after which time she became a free woman and supported herself by working as a laundress at the college.
Call Number: eBookPublication Date: 2000
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A Noble and Independent Course: the life of the Reverend Edward Mitchell
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Edward Mitchell was the first Black student to graduate from Darmouth College in 1828, more than 35 years before any other Ivy League school admitted a Black student. Author tells Mitchell's life story, supported by archival documents -- including his college essays, notes on his religious conversion, and hand-copied versions of his sermons.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781512602852Publication Date: 2018-07-03
Massachusetts
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Beyond Garrison: antislavery and social reform
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Explores the politics of lesser-known anti-slavery advocates and activists in Massachusetts, who were instrumental in achieving social progress during the antebellum period. Author explores how and why Massachusetts became one of the few Northern states with voting rights for Black men, personal liberty laws, and protections from federal authorities for those escaping enslavement.
Call Number: E445.M4 L38 2005ISBN: 0521844088Publication Date: 2005 -
Black Boston
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Historical analysis of Black Bostonian communal life following emancipation, with a multi-faceted look at community experiences -- including work, class division, churches, schools, social organizations, and leadership.
Call Number: F73.9.N4 L48 1994ISBN: 0815315937Publication Date: 1994 -
Blacks at Harvard: a documentary history of African-American experience at Harvard and Radcliffe
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The history of Blacks at Harvard mirrors, for better or for worse, the history of Black people in the United States. Harvard, too, has been indelibly scarred by slavery, exclusion, segregation, and other forms of racist oppression. At the same time, the nation's oldest university has also, at various times, stimulated, supported, or allowed itself to be influenced by the various reform movements that have dramatically changed the nature of race relations across the nation.
Call Number: LD2151 .B57 1993ISBN: 0814779727Publication Date: 1993 -
The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley
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Phillis Wheatley, born 1753, was the first Black woman to publish a book in the United States. While she had a short life (dying in 1784), she became internationally famous. This volume is a collection of her works, which are significant to America's literary heritage.
Call Number: PS866 .W5 1988ISBN: 0195052412Publication Date: 1988 -
First Fruits of Freedom: the migration of former slaves and their search for equality in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1862-1900
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Chronicles one of the first migrations of Black people from the South to the North during and after the Civil War, offering a rare glimpse into the lives of African American men, women, and children on the cusp of freedom. Author relates the history of the network forged between Worcester County, Mass. and eastern North Carolina, through which abolitionist soldiers protected Black refugees and led them North.
Call Number: F74.W9 G925 2009ISBN: 9780807895788Publication Date: 2009 -
Homelands and Waterways: the American journey of the Bond family, 1846-1926
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Homelands and Waterwaysis a monumental history that traces the rise of a resolute African American family (the author's own) from privation to the middle class. In so doing, it explodes the stereotypes that have shaped and distorted our thinking about African Americans--both as slaves and in freedom. Adele Logan Alexander's account is the result of extensive interviews and exhaustive research in government, church, and academic archives, as well as in private papers and photographic collections. The story follows three generations of the Bond family from Victorian England to antebellum Virginia plantations, from Herman Melville's New Bedford and suburban Boston to the Jim Crow South and the nation's capital, from black college campuses to Harvard University, from naval skirmishes during the Civil and Spanish-American Wars to the Argonne Forest's World War I battlefields to scenes of the country's urban race riots. In addition to family members, notable figures such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti traverse these pages as well. Alexander guides the reader through eighty crucial years in American history, as the Bonds both willfully and unwittingly interacted with major political, technological, and cultural issues of their time, while established beliefs about race, class, and gender both limited and inspirited their lives. This compelling narrative and analysis of the Bonds' journeys through disparate adversities to an uneasy realization of the American dream is an achievement of both rich personal specificity and epic historical scope.
Call Number: E185.96 .A47 1999ISBN: 0679442286Publication Date: 1999 -
Hope and Glory: essays on the legacy of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment
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Gathering together contributions from the academic world and personal memories, this work examines the lasting influence of the most famous Black military unit of the American Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. Discusses the Black men who volunteered for the regiment, their struggle for respect and equal pay, and the role of their White commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw.
Call Number: E513.5 54th .H66 2001ISBN: 1558492771Publication Date: 2001 -
In pursuit of knowledge : black women and educational activism in antebellum America
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Examines the history of 19th-century school desegregation in the United States through archival sources and genealogical records and brings recognition to overlooked activists: Black women and girls. Author explores the obstacles faced by Black women and girls in their question for education, including threats and harassment from violence. Notable Black women activists include: Sarah Harris, Sarah Parker Remond, Rosetta Morrison, Susan Paul, and Sarah Mapps Douglass.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 1479871370Publication Date: 2019 -
Looking for Mr. Gilbert: the reimagined life of an African American
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Chronicles the discovery of two thousand antique glass plate negatives in the attic of an estate in Massachusetts, photographed by Robert Gilbert -- a Black man who worked as an assistant to William Brewster. At the time of discovery, the author believed the photographs were taken by Brewster, a noted 19th-century ornithologist and conservationist. Mitchell embarked on a quest to find out more about Gilbert.
Call Number: F73.9.N4 M58 2005ISBN: 1593760264Publication Date: 2005 -
Love Across the Color Line: the letters of Alice Hanley to Channing Lewis
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This work examines the collection of 27 letters written by a white woman to her African American lover in 1907 and 1908. The letters, which were hidden for over 80 years, provide a different perspective of American social history and are accompanied by essays which probe their larger meanings.
Call Number: HQ801.3 .L68 1996ISBN: 9781558490239Publication Date: 1996 -
Peter's War: a New England slave boy and the American Revolution
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A riveting narrative of a New England slave boy caught up in the American Revolution A boy named Peter, born to a slave in Massachusetts in 1763, was sold nineteen months later to a childless white couple there. This book recounts the fascinating history of how the American Revolution came to Peter's small town, how he joined the revolutionary army at the age of twelve, and how he participated in the battles of Bunker Hill and Yorktown and witnessed the surrender at Saratoga. Joyce Lee Malcolm describes Peter's home life in rural New England, which became increasingly unhappy as he grew aware of racial differences and prejudices. She then relates how he and other blacks, slave and free, joined the war to achieve their own independence. Malcolm juxtaposes Peter's life in the patriot armies with that of the life of Titus, a New Jersey slave who fled to the British in 1775 and reemerged as a feared guerrilla leader. A remarkable feat of investigation, Peter's biography illuminates many themes in American history: race relations in New England, the prelude to and military history of the Revolutionary War, and the varied experience of black soldiers who fought on both sides.
Call Number: Print & eBookISBN: 9780300142761Publication Date: 2009-02-03 -
Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment The Civil War Diary of Burt G. Wilder, 55th Massachusetts
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A previously unpublished record of a White doctor's service with the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry -- a Black regiment -- during the Civil War. In 1863, following the Emancipation Proclamation, Massachusetts began recruiting Black soldiers to serve in the war. Burt Green Wilder, a Boston-born, Harvard-educated doctor-in-training was among the first White officers commissioned to staff the 55th Mass. infantry. He was selected for his military experience and anti-slavery principles, as well as his faith in the value of Black troops. Wilder recorded his experiences and observations, describing the day-to-day activities of a Civil War surgeon, the indignities suffered by Black troops, and the regiment's campaigns in Charleston and Florida.
Call Number: E513.5 55th .W55 2010ISBN: 1613760353Publication Date: 2010
New Hampshire
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Black Portsmouth: three centuries of African-American heritage
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Few people think of a rich Black heritage when they think of New England. In the pioneering book Black Portsmouth, Mark J. Sammons and Valerie Cunningham celebrate it, guiding the reader through more than three centuries of New England and Portsmouth social, political, economic, and cultural history as well as scores of personal and site-specific stories. Here, we meet such Africans as the likely negro boys and girls from Gambia, who debarked at Portsmouth from a slave ship in 1758, and Prince Whipple, who fought in the American Revolution. We learn about their descendants, including the performer Richard Potter and John Tate of the People's Baptist Church, who overcame the tragedies and challenges of their ancestors' enslavement and subsequent marginalization to build communities and families, found institutions, and contribute to their city, region, state, and nation in many capacities. Individual entries speak to broader issues--the anti-slavery movement, American religion, and foodways, for example. We also learn about the extant historical sites important to Black Portsmouth--including the surprise revelation of an African burial ground in October 2003--as well as the extraordinary efforts being made to preserve remnants of the city's early Black heritage.
Call Number: F44.P8 S25 2004ISBN: 1584652896Publication Date: 2004 -
Never Caught: the Washingtons' relentless pursuit of their runaway slave, Ona Judge
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Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction "A fascinating and moving account of a courageous and resourceful woman. Beautifully written and utilizing previously untapped sources it sheds new light both on the father of our country and on the intersections of slavery and freedom." --Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Fiery Trial and Gateway to Freedom A startling and eye-opening look into America's First Family, Never Caught is the powerful narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington's runaway slave who risked everything to escape the nation's capital and reach freedom. When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation's capital. In setting up his household he took Tobias Lear, his celebrated secretary and eight slaves, including Ona Judge, about whom little has been written. As he grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn't get his arms around: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire. Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, the few pleasantries she was afforded were nothing compared to freedom, a glimpse of which she encountered first-hand in Philadelphia. So, when the opportunity presented itself, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property. With impeccable research, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked it all to gain freedom from the famous founding father.
Call Number: E444 .D86 2017ISBN: 9781501126390Publication Date: 2017 -
Our Nig, or, Sketches from the life of a free Black
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Our Nig is the tale of a mixed-race girl, Frado, abandoned by her white mother after the death of the child's black father. Frado becomes the servant of the Bellmonts, a lower-middle-class white family in the free North, while slavery is still legal in the South, and suffers numerous abuses in their household. Frado's story is a tragic one; having left the Bellmonts, she eventually marries a black fugitive slave, who later abandons her.
Call Number: PS3334.W39 O9 2005ISBN: 0142437778Publication Date: 2004 -
Scholarship Boy: meditations on family and race
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"Palmer was fourteen years old in September 1958 when he made the unlikely journey alone by train to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. It is impossible to read this boy's storyâe*'ninth child of ten, and the sixth of seven sons'âe*without feeling the loneliness of that first passage away from homeâe*a black boy crossing into a bastion of white privilegeâe*and the scale of the transformation that awaited him."âe*Carrie Brown, author ofThe Stargazer's Sister In 1958, fourteen-year-old Larry Palmer left his parents and nine siblings at home in St. Louis and boarded a train to attend Phillips Exeter Academy (then an all boys' school) on full scholarship. InScholarship Boy Palmer reflects on his experiences as a young black boy growing up far from home, learning to fit into a white world without becoming estranged from his closely-knit family. Palmer delves back into the early years of his childhood, and at times all the way to his family's past in rural Arkansas before he was born, and brings the reader up to his undergraduate years at Harvard and his father's death while he attended Yale Law School in the 1960s. The ninth of ten children, he writes about the delicate, complex balances within the family and illustrates the ways his sibling relationships shaped him as he was also being molded by his elite education. Palmer's journey from being the "next-to-the-baby" of his family into adulthood reveals the personal and often hidden costs of cultural migration.
Call Number: LC2761 .P35 2020ISBN: 9781589881457Publication Date: 2020
Rhode Island
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The Devotion of These Women: Rhode Island in the antislavery network
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During the 1830s. the small state of Rhode Island flourished as a center of radical abolitionism. Inspired by William Lloyd Garrison's call for immediate emancipation. some twenty-five antislavery societies were formed under the leadership of the African American communities in Providence and Newport, several energetic Baptist and Congregational clergymen, and the wealthy elder statesman of the New England Friends, Moses Brown. Despite the efforts of these groups, by 1842 the antislavery movement in Rhode Island was nearly moribund, the unified hopes of earlier years having fallen victim to political wrangling. A year later the largest auxiliary in the state, the Providence Antislavery Society, turned its funds over to Amarancy Paine, who in concert with other women not only revived the abolitionist movement in the state but kept it running for another ten years. This detailed study explores how and why women like Paine emerged from the background to resuscitate and lead the antislavery cause in Rhode Island. It suggests that women more than men were accustomed to working behind the scenes, informally and without much public recognition. The crumbling of the male-centered organizat
Call Number: E445.R4 V36 2002ISBN: 1558493638Publication Date: 2002 -
The free African American cultural landscape: Newport, RI, 1774--1826.
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Dissertation examining the processes of community integration in Newport, including the development and maintenance of a Black social elite and social interactions through community events, marriage patterns, and neighborhood development. Author's arguments are supported by census documents, diaries, probate records, property deeds, and personal correspondences of the time.
Call Number: eBookPublication Date: 2008
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Inventing New England's Slave Paradise:
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Many 19th and 20th century historians have argued that Northern slavery was mild and that master/slave relations were relatively harmonious. Yet, Northern slavery, like Southern, was characterized by the conflict between the masters' desire to control their slaves and the slaves' resistance to this domination. For a variety of political, social, and intellectual reasons, 19th and 20th century historians ignored this inherent conflict in discussions of Northern slavery. Fitts' research focuses on how and why historians sanitized the history of slavery in Narragansett, Rhode Island, and then shows the inadequacy of these interpretations by examining several of the planters' and slaves' conflicting strategies of control and resistance. Topics include how planters used physical punishment, legislation, and the threat of sale in an attempt to control their slaves, and how slaves resisted through violence, running away, and non-violent crime. Fitts also examines the plantation landscape as a site of symboliccontestation and includes a chapter on slave names. (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1995; revised with new preface)
Call Number: F89.N2 F58 1998ISBN: 0815332807Publication Date: 1998 -
Life of George Henry : together with a brief history of the colored people in America
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Originally published in 1894, this autobiographical account of George Henry tells of his life as an enslaved man in Virginia and his freedom after the Civil War. Following his emancipation, Henry settled in New England and became a resident of Providence.
Call Number: eBookPublication Date: 2000
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Maritcha: a nineteenth-century American girl
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Discover the remarkable story of a free Black girl born during the days of slavery in this Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winning picture book "To do the best for myself with the view of making the best of myself," wrote Maritcha Rémond Lyons (1848--1929) about her childhood. Based on an unpublished memoir written by Lyons, who was born and raised in New York City, this poignant story tells what it was like to be a Black child born free during the days of slavery. Everyday experiences are interspersed with notable moments, such as a visit to the first world's fair held in the United States. Also included are the Draft Riots of 1863, during which Maritcha and her siblings fled to Brooklyn while her parents stayed behind to protect their Manhattan home. The book concludes with her fight to attend a whites-only high school in Providence, Rhode Island, and her victory of being the first Black graduate. The evocative text, photographs, and archival material make this book an invaluable cultural and historical resource. Maritcha brings to life the story of a very ordinary--yet remarkable--girl of nineteenth-century America.
Call Number: Special Collections CLC D1289ISBN: 0810950456Publication Date: 2005 -
Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge
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Autobiography of Elleanor Eldridge, a Black indigenous woman born in 1794. She operated a lucrative domestic service business in Provide, purchased land, and built rental property, all of which gained her wealth and social standing in the community.
Call Number: eBookPublication Date: 1838
Vermont
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Daisy Turner's Kin: An African American Family Saga
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A daughter of freed African American slaves, Daisy Turner became a living repository of history. The family narrative entrusted to her--"a well-polished artifact, an heirloom that had been carefully preserved"--began among the Yoruba in West Africa and continued with her own century and more of life. In 1983, folklorist Jane Beck began a series of interviews with Turner, then one hundred years old and still relating four generations of oral history. Beck uses Turner's storytelling to build the Turner family saga, using at its foundation the oft-repeated touchstone stories at the heart of their experiences: the abduction into slavery of Turner's African ancestors; Daisy's father Alec Turner learning to read; his return as a soldier to his former plantation to kill his former overseer; and Daisy's childhood stand against racism. Other stories re-create enslavement and her father's life in Vermont--in short, the range of life events large and small, transmitted by means so alive as to include voice inflections. Beck, at the same time, weaves in historical research and offers a folklorist's perspective on oral history and the hazards--and uses--of memory. Publication of this book is supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the L. J. and Mary C. Skaggs Folklore Fund.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780252039232Publication Date: 2015 -
Discovering Black Vermont: African American farmers in Hinesburgh, 1790-1890
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An impressive work of historical recovery, Discovering Black Vermont tells the story of three generations of free blacks trying to build a life and community in northern Vermont in the years following statehood. By piecing together fragments of the history of free blacks in Vermont—tax and estate records, journals, diaries, and the like—the author recovers what is essentially a lost world, establishing a framework for using primary sources to document a forgotten past. The book is an invaluable resource for those conducting local history research and will serve as inspiration for high school and college students and their teachers.
Call Number: F59.H56 G89 2010ISBN: 9781584659082Publication Date: 2010 -
Mr. and Mrs. Prince: how an extraordinary eighteenth-century family moved out of slavery and into legend
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Merging comprehensive research and grand storytelling, Mr. and Mrs. Prince reveals the true story of a remarkable pre-Civil War African-American family, as well as the challenges that faced African-Americans who lived in the North versus the slaves who lived in the South. Both accomplished people, Lucy Terry was a devoted wife and mother, and the first known African-American poet. Abijah Prince, her husband, was a veteran of the French and Indian Wars and an entrepreneur. Together they pursued what would become the cornerstone of the American dream--having a family and owning property where they could live, grow, and prosper. Owning land in both Vermont and Massachusetts, they were well on their way to settling in when bigoted neighbors tried to run them off. Rather than fleeing, they asserted their rights, as they would do many times, in court. Here is a story that not only demonstrates the contours of slavery in New England but also unravels the most complete history of a pre-Civil War black family known to exist. Illuminating and inspiring, Mr. and Mrs. Prince uncovers the lives of those who could have been forgotten and brings to light a history that's intrigued but eluded many until now.
Call Number: E185.18 .G47 2008ISBN: 9780060510732Publication Date: 2008 -
Vermont Women, Native Americans and African Americans
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Vermont's constitution, drafted in 1777, was one of the most enlightened documents of its time, but in contrast, the history of Vermont has largely been told through the stories of influential white men. This book takes a fresh look at Vermont's history, uncovering hidden stories, from the earliest inhabitants to present-day citizens striving to overcome adversity and be advocates for change. Native Americans struggled to maintain an identity in the state while their land and rights were disappearing. Lucy Terry Prince was the first female African American poet who rose above racism to argue her case before Vermont's governor and won. Educator and historian Cynthia Bittinger unearths these and other inspirational stories of the contributions of women, Native Americans and African Americans to Vermont's history.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781614235613Publication Date: 2012
Films
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African Americans in Connecticut : the Colonial era to the Civil War
A 2-part documentary series recounting the significant events and individuals in Black Connecticut from colonial times to the Civil War.
Call Number: E185.93.C7 A371 1998Publication Date: 1998
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Amistad
Major motion picture depicting the Amistad uprising of 1839 and the landmark Supreme Court case, United States vs. Amistad. Check streaming platforms for online availability.
Call Number: PN1997 .A5444 1999Publication Date: 1999 -
Glory
Major motion picture following the Battle of Antietam and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the United State's first Black regiment.
Call Number: DVD & StreamingPublication Date: 2007
Digital Projects
Agents of Change: The Founding and Impact of the African-American Student Union by Harvard Business School. An online exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the African American Student Union at Harvard Business School, founded in 1968. The exhibit examines the African American experience at HBS from 1915 to 1990 and focuses on the establishment and impact of AASU on Black students and the institution.
Colored Conventions Project by the University of Delaware. An interdisciplinary research hub using digital tools to trace and preserve the history of 19th-century Black organizing. CCP uses innovative, inclusive partnerships to locate, transcribe, and archive documentary records related to the 70-year history of "Colored Convention" meetings across the US cities during the antebellum and reconstruction periods. These meetings were significant for strategizing and organizing around racial justice in the 19th century. Numerous meetings were held in the New England region.
Curating the MIT Black Experience by MIT. A digital archival collection documenting the experiences and contributions of Black life at MIT since the Institute's founding in 1861.
Hartford Bound: The Story of Race, Migration and Mobility in Hartford by Fiona Vernal and James Kolb. Explores the history of migration, housing, settlement, community formation, and succession through the lens of Hartford, focusing on three waves of migration (African American, Puerto Rican, and West Indian) that transformed the city's ethnic and racial landscapes in the 20th century.
Massachusetts Hip Hop Archive by MIT. A digital collection of recordings from Lecco’s Lemma radio program, a rap music show that was founded by Magnus Johnstone, which ran from 1985 to 1988 on local college radio stations WMBR (88.1 FM) and WZBC (90.3 FM). Collection also includes cassette images, original photographs, videotape recordings, flyers, promotional materials, unique publications and magazines, letters, diaries, and other first-hand accounts.
Slavery and the U.S. Supreme Court: The Amistad Case by Amistad Research Center at Tulane University. A digital collection of over 300 primary source documents relating to the 1839 United States v. Amistad Supreme Court case.
Venture Smith Project by David Richardson and Chandler B. Saint. Using interdisciplinary research methods, this project traces the life of Broteer Furro (aka Venture Smith), who was captured and sold into slavery at Fort Anomabo on coast of Ghana, then transported to Barbados, and eventually Rhode Island.
CT Black Heritage Sites
Amistad Center for Arts and Culture | Hartford, CT -- A collection of over 7,000 works of art, artifacts, and archival materials documenting more than 300 years of Black American life.
Ancient Burying Ground | Hartford, CT -- The city's oldest are foremost graveyard, dating back to the 1640s and the first English settlers. Deceased persons were buried here, regardless of race, age, gender, religion, or ethnic background.
Connecticut Freedom Trail | CT -- Directory of over 150 heritage sites that embody the struggle toward freedom and human dignity, celebrate the accomplishments of the state's African American community, and promote heritage tourism. Includes news, events, and resources.
Discovering Amistad | New Haven, CT -- A replica of La Amistad, a Spanish ship en route to Havana, Cuba that was overtaken by African captives in 1839. The ship was later seized and taken to New London, CT and the men arrested, to be held for trial in a landmark Supreme Court case, United States vs. Amistad. The Court decided in favor of the kidnapped men; 33 men survived and returned to their homelands. Read more about the case.
Harriet Beecher Stowe Center | Hartford, CT -- Museum featuring interactive tours, in the former home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the 1852 anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Prudence Crandall Museum | Canterbury, CT -- In 1831, Prudence Crandall opened a private academy for the daughters of the white families of Canterbury and neighboring communities. Sarah Harris approached Crandall and was accepted as the first black woman as a student at the Academy. In 1833, Crandall decided to close the school and re-open it as one exclusively for “young Ladies and Little misses of color”. Over twenty Black women and girls, between the ages of 9 and 22, attended the school. In 1834, a mob attacked the school, resulting in its closure.
