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Search results for: emancipation
Gradual Emancipation Reflected the Struggle of Some to Envision Black Freedom
…turn of the 19th century, slavery was well on the road to extinction in the North. Gradual Emancipation in Connecticut Gradual emancipation laws leveled a devastating blow to slavery in…
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From the State Historian: Connecticut’s Slow Steps Toward Emancipation
…mother. Later, laws were passed lowering the age of emancipation and forbidding the sale of any slaves out of state (where emancipation laws could be circumvented), but slavery continued here…
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The Great Remedy: Picturing the Emancipation Proclamation
…E.B. & E.C. Kellogg dealing with the questions of slavery and emancipation. Issued in advance, the print depicts the Emancipation Proclamation as the remedy to slavery, embodied in a bottle…
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Hebron’s Josephine Sophia (White) Griffing and a Vision for Post-Emancipation America
By Sharon L. Cohen From before emancipation and the 13th Amendment, Josephine Sophia (White) Griffing of Hebron, Connecticut, was an ardent advocate for enslaved and free people. Post-emancipation, African Americans…
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The Complicated Realities of Connecticut and the Civil War
…enslaved, once the conflict was in earnest, emancipation became a means to win. Emancipation vs. Abolition Handbill issued by The Hartford Courant in April 1865 that signaled the end of…
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James Mars’ Words Illuminate the Cruelty of Slavery in New England
…as accomplishments of the past. Life under Gradual Emancipation The enslavement of African peoples had been present in Connecticut since the 17th century, and by 1775 slaves in the state…
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Connecticut’s First Known Juneteenth Celebration in Norwich – Who Knew?
…and enslaved people learned of their freedom—two and half years after the Emancipation Proclamation officially set them free. African American communities, particularly in Texas and the South, have long celebrated…
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Early Anti-slavery Advocates in 18th-century Connecticut
…dedication to individual freedom and representative government. Levi Hart wrote one of America’s first proposals for the emancipation of the slaves, Liberty Described and Recommended, with the hope that it…
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Apostle of Peace: Elihu Burritt’s Quest for Universal Brotherhood
…to divide the United States. Burritt was and always had been a staunch abolitionist, who hated slavery as much as he hated war. He proposed a plan of compensated emancipation,…
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Liberian Independence Day
…Abolitionists, both black and white, felt that Colonization favored the slave holders and advocated for immediate emancipation. It would require a bloody conflict to finally put an end to slavery,…
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Connecticut’s Black Governors
…process of gradual emancipation in 1784 and as the movement for full equality for blacks throughout the new nation grew ever-stronger in the 19th century. Overall, though, the primary task…
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The Old Brownstone Soldier
…including Antietam and Fredericksburg. He was discharged on June 1, 1863, five months after the Emancipation Proclamation. Three years later, Hartford business mogul James G. Batterson employed Charles Conrads as…
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Ebenezer Bassett’s Historic Journey
…Educating Ebenezer In the late 1840s Ebenezer’s formal education began at the Birmingham Academy established in 1838 and located near the Derby green. Though Connecticut had passed a gradual emancipation…
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Prospect’s David Miles Hotchkiss and the Free Soil Party
…the newly formed Republican Party absorbed much of the Free Soil Party and carried on their anti-slavery message. Even though Connecticut instituted gradual emancipation in 1784, opinions around the state…
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Connecticut 29th Mustered into Service – Today in History: March 8
…into service to fight for the Union’s cause in the Civil War. Almost a year earlier, on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln had issued an executive order, the Emancipation…
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Site Lines: Connecticut’s Freedom Trail
By Karin Peterson for Connecticut Explored Neither the Emancipation Proclamation nor Connecticut legislation related to freeing enslaved Africans guaranteed equal treatment and opportunities for those freed. And even these victories…
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Nancy Toney’s Lifetime in Slavery
…years before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and eight years before the US outlawed slavery. A surviving portrait and headstone flesh out the story told by vital records, census…
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An Orderly & Decent Government: Making Self-Government Work, 1776-1818
…them to limit emancipation to slave children, and then only after they reached the age of 25. By 1790, the General Assembly had grown to 200 members and a more…
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Everyday Life
…to freedom under the state’s Gradual Emancipation Act of 1784. Personal accounts, along with photographs, artifacts, songs, and other historical evidence, help bring the experience of the everyday to light….
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A Connecticut Slave in George Washington’s Army
Nero Hawley, born into slavery in Connecticut in the 18th century, fought in the Revolutionary War. After his emancipation at the age of 41, he went on to become a…
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“’No Taxation without Representation’: Black Voting in Connecticut
In 1784, Connecticut passed a Gradual Emancipation Act that ended hereditary enslavement for African Americans in the state. The act required freeing, at the age of 25, those born into…
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Hebron
…charcoal (once a fuel source for other industries), bricks, textiles, paper, and other goods. Town history also reveals Connecticut’s connections to slavery, abolitionism, and post-emancipation agitation for freed people’s rights….
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Albert Augustus Pope, Transportation Pioneer
…Anthony declared, “The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything in the world.” Pope and the Good Roads Movement Closely tied to the opportunity to expand…
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The Seth Wetmore House: A Storied Structure of 18th Century Middletown
…hoping to gain his freedom in the north after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation, journeyed to Connecticut in 1865. A recommendation about work available in Middletown led Washington to…
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The Rev. Amos Beman’s Devotion to Education, Social Activism, and New Haven
…a residence on Howe Street in New Haven, never completely disconnecting from the city. He returned for social events, even presiding over Jubilee, celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the…
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They Also Served: Chinese, Southeast Asians, and Hawaiians in the American Civil War
…the Hartford Courant, 1933 – Hartford Courant, Connecticut State Library Connecticut formed its first Black regiments following the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and these, too, contained soldiers born in Asia…
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Middletown’s Beman Triangle: A Testament to Black Freedom and Resilience
…testaments to centuries of Black freedom and resilience in Connecticut. Connecticut Slavery, Emancipation, and the Origins of the Beman Triangle, 1650-1829 Cross Street A.M.E. Zion Church from City of Middletown…
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Albert Pope Pioneered Bicycles for Women
…concept of independence for women, that civil rights activist and suffragist Susan B. Anthony declared, “The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything in the world.”…
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Jackson v. Bulloch and the End of Slavery in Connecticut
by Andy Piascik In 1784, as the American Revolution drew to a close, the new government of Connecticut passed the Gradual Abolition Act to address the issue of slavery in…
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Connecticut’s Black Civil War Regiment
…1863, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, a document that freed slaves in the border states and authorized the enlistment of black soldiers. On May 22, 1863, the United States…
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Changing Sentiments on Slavery in Colonial Hebron
Cesar and Lowis Peters (whose names are often found spelled Caesar and Lois) were enslaved African Americans who lived in Hebron, Connecticut, in the late 18th century. While the story…
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Black Loyalist Refugees: Toney Escapes During the Burning of Fairfield
By Alec Lurie When English warships landed at Fairfield’s Kenzie’s Point in July 1779, townspeople knew disaster was in store for coastal Connecticut. Some, however, saw British flags as a…
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