Many researchers are surprised to learn that New England's African
American history stretches back as far as that of English and European
immigrants to North America. While it is still being debated whether
Abraham Pearse was the "blackamoor" listed among the Pilgrim settlers in
Plimoth Colony, it is certain that African slaves were brought to
Massachusetts in 1638 by the colony. Connecticut and Rhode Island
imported slaves in approximately the same decade and New Hampshire was
not far behind. New England merchants were active participants in the
Atlantic slave trade throughout the Colonial Period. After the end of
the importation of slaves to the United States, New England's economic
and family ties to plantations continued through the manufacture of
cloth for southern plantations. New England experienced a steady influx
of descendants of Africans as freed and escaped slaves moved north
during the Antebellum period. After the Civil War and in the twentieth
century, New England received some of the southern African Americans
that participated in the Great Migrations. And immigrants from the West
Indies and Africa have continued to settle in New England.
For those researching African American genealogy, knowledge of
secondary sources that discuss their rich and varied history in New
England is important. Why? First, an understanding of the historical
context will help the researcher to get the most out of the primary and
secondary sources available. Second, knowing the facts of the slave
trade and immigration trends, racial and regional issues, and specific
restrictions and prejudices faced by African Americans will assist with
interpreting sources and guiding the family researcher to other research
material.
The discussion below highlights books, guides, and articles
specifically about African American genealogy and history in New
England. This list, while not exhaustive, provides a selection of
resources from each New England state and concentrates on works that
describe specific African Americans and records about African Americans,
rather than general coverage of historical trends. Family researchers
should always remember to search all historical terms for Africans and
African Americans ("Black," "Colored," "Free person of color,"
"Mulatto," "Negro," "Octoroon," "People of Color," "Quadroon," and
"slave") when searching any resource. Do not limit this method of
searching to only historic records, as indexing in historical journals
is often inconsistent. Researchers should search indexes for all of the
above as well as the terms "underground railroad," "slave trade," and
"slavery."
New England Resources
William D. Pierson's Black
Yankees: the Development of an Afro-American Subculture in
Eighteenth-Century New England (1988, UMASS Press, Amherst, MA) is
an excellent overview of African American culture in the colonial
period, as is the earlier The Negro in Colonial New England by
Lorenzo Johnston Greene (1974, Athenaeum, New York). The participation
of African Americans in the American Revolution is the subject of New
England Black historian William C. Nell's Colored Patriots of the
American Revolution (1855, R.F. Wallcut, Boston) and The Black
Presence in the Era of the American Revolution by Sydney and Emma
Nogrady Kaplan (revised edition, 1989, University of Massachusetts
Press, Amherst). Thomas Truxtun Moebs' Black Soldiers-Black
Sailors-Black Ink: A Research Guide on African Americans in U.S.
Military Service (1994, Moebs Publishing Company, Chesapeake Bay,
VA) is a compendium indexed by name that includes writings of Black
veterans.
Although African American slaves in Massachusetts
successfully litigated for their freedom in the 1780s, more gradual
emancipation took place in the other states of New England as outlined
in Joanne Pope Melish's Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and
"Race" in New England, 1780-1860 (1998, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca). The New England African American experience in the Civil War is
chronicled in books on the Union's Black Regiments such as Luis F.
Emilio's History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of the Massachusetts
Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865 (1894, The Boston Book Company, second
edition, Boston) and Noah Andre Trudeau's Voice of the 55th: Letters
from the 55th Massachusetts Volunteers, 1861-1865 (1996,
Morningside Press, Dayton, OH). Topical resources include the Kendall
Whaling Museum's African Americans in the Maritime Trades, A Guide to
Resources in New England (1990, Kendall Whaling Museum, Sharon) and
Edward Clark's Black Writers in New England.
Connecticut
By
the end of the colonial period, Connecticut had the largest African
American population in New England. The Connecticut State Library has an
excellent online guide to
African American genealogy which contains a bibliography of African
Americans in Connecticut. The New London Historical Society has recently
published two books on Connecticut African American history: an updated
Black Roots in Southeastern Connecticut, 1650-1900 (2001) by
Barbara W. Brown and James M. Rose, and Linwood T. Bland's A View
from the 60s: The Black Experience in Southeastern Connecticut
(2001). Rose and Brown have also published Tapestry, a Living History
of the Black Family in Southeastern Connecticut (1979, New London
County Historical Society). Mary Nason's African Americans in
Simsbury, 1725-1925 (1996, M. L. Nason, Simsbury, CT), Sandi
Brewster Walker's articles on Bridgeport and Greenwich records in the Journal
of the African American Historic and Genealogical Society (JAAHGS),
and Daniel Stewart's Black New Haven (1977, D.Y. Stewart, New
Haven CT) provide history and genealogical information for other
localities. The Sweeter the Juice: a Family Memoir in Black and White
by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip (1994, Touchstone Books, New York) is a
moving account of a family history search.
Maine
Maine
was part of Massachusetts until 1820, so researchers should consult
sources in both states prior to that year. Maine's African American
population is currently the second smallest in New England. Randolph
Stakeman's article "The Black Population of Maine, 1764-1900" can be
found in the New England Journal of Black Studies (1989). African
American genealogy and history topics can be found in the journal Maine
History, published by the Maine Historical Society. The University
of Southern Maine Library has an African American
Archives of Maine Reading Room located in Gorham. Anchor of the
Soul: the History of an African American Community in Portland, Maine
is an in-depth film about African American history and race relations
in northern New England.
Massachusetts
A handout is
available from the Massachusetts Archives entitled "Sources for Black
Genealogy/History" which indicates records that specify color of an
individual and reference materials pertaining solely to African
Americans. In 1866, George H. Moore published Notes on the History of
Slavery in Massachusetts (reprint 1968, Negro Universities Press,
New York) detailing the enslavement of Africans and the individual and
collective efforts to end slavery in Massachusetts. The book also
reproduces the "Warning Out" lists of 1800 from Boston, which contain
records of "Africans and Negroes" and "Indians and Mulattoes" and their
places of origin.
There are a number of studies of Boston's
African American community. Three books span three centuries: Adelaide
M. Cromwell's The Other Brahmins, Boston's Black Upper Class,
1750-1950 (1994, University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, AR),
Franklin A. Dorman's Twenty Families of Color in Massachusetts,
1742-1998 (1999, New England Historic Genealogical
Society, Boston), and Robert C. Hayden's African Americans in Boston,
More than 350 Years (1992, Boston Public Library, Boston). James
and Lois Horton's seminal work Black Bostonians: Family Life and
Community Struggle in the Antebellum North (1999) has recently been
reissued by Holmes and Meier and The African Meeting House in Boston:
A Sourcebook (19--, Museum of Afro-American History, Boston)
provides context as well. Elizabeth H. Pleck studied the post-Civil War
period of the same community in Black Migration and Poverty: Boston
1865-1900 (1979, Academic Press, New York).
The period of
the early twentieth century is recounted in Mark R. Schneider's Boston
Confronts Jim Crow (1997, Northeastern University Press, Boston).
For those interested in the mid- to late twentieth century, Mel King's Chain
of Change: Struggles for Black Community Development (1981, South
End Press, Boston) and J. Anthony Lukas' Common Ground: A Turbulent
Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (1986, Vintage Books)
chronicle the 1960s through the 1970s.
Joseph Carvalho's Black
Families in Hampden County, Massachusetts, 1650-1855 (1984, New
England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston) and James Avery Smith's The
History of the Black Population of Amherst, Massachusetts, 1728-1870
(1999: New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston) cover African
American family history in the western part of Massachusetts. Kathryn
Grover has just published The Fugitive's Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves
and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts (2001, University of
Massachusetts Press, Amherst) and Robert C. Hayden and Karen E. Hayden
describe African Americans on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket:
A History of People, Places and Events (1999, Select Publications,
Boston).
New Hampshire
New Hampshire's African American
population has congregated in Rockingham County, especially on the coast
in Portsmouth. Valerie Cunningham, director of both the African
American Resource Center and the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, has
published related articles in New Hampshire History magazine.
These articles and much more are available online,
where you can also take a virtual tour of the Trail. Historical New
Hampshire, the journal of the New Hampshire Historical Society, is
the source of a few articles and references to African Americans,
including a 1966 article on "Slavery in Colonial Portsmouth.
Rhode
Island
Jay Coughtry's The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island
and the African Slave Trade, 1700-1807 (1981, Philadelphia)
describes the very active role Rhode Island played in the Atlantic slave
trade. The Rhode Island Black Heritage Society has two publications: A
Heritage Discovered: Blacks in Rhode Island (1978) by Rowena
Stewart and Creative Survival: the Providence Black Community in the
19th Century. Another study of Providence's African American
community is Robert J. Cottrol's The Afro-Yankees: Providence's Black
Community in the Antebellum Era (1982, Greenwood Press, Westport,
CT). The Newport Historical Society has published African Americans
in Newport, 1700-1945 (1995) by Robert C. Youngken. Another study of
Newport's black community is "Lord, Please Don't Take Me in August":
African Americans in Newport and Saratoga Springs, 1879-1930
(1999, University of Illinois) by Myra B. Young Armstead.
Vermont
Vermont has always had the smallest African American population
of the New England states, but according to James R. Fuller, Jr.'s Men
of Color, to Arms!: Vermont African Americans in the Civil War
(2001, University Press), 152 of the state's 709 Black residents
enlisted to fight in the Civil War. The book covers the period from 1771
through the Civil War. Information is also available online at the Vermont in
the Civil Warwebsite. The Civil Rights Era in Vermont is
addressed in Stephen M Wrinn's Civil Rights in the Whitest State
(1997, University Press of America).
Beth Anne Bower is an independent researcher. She has recently
completed a study of the manuscript collections of the Massachusetts
Historical Society (MHS) that contain primary sources about African
Americans. The study is available as an MHS finding aid entitled
“Collections Relevant to African American History at the Massachusetts
Historical Society.”
1."Who was the "Black Pilgrim?"
http://www.africana.com/Facts/bl_fact_76.htm
2.Clark,
Edward Black Writers in New England A Bibliography, with
Biographical Notes, of Books by and About Afro-American Writers
Associated with New England in the Collection of Afro-American
Literature (1985: National Park Service, Boston).
3.See
JAAHGS vols. 4:23, 4:35-38 and 7: 157-161.
4.Oedel,
Howard T. "Slavery in Colonial Portsmouth" in Historical New Hampshire,
vol. 21 (Autumn 1966), p. 3-11.