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Search results for: slavery
Early Anti-slavery Advocates in 18th-century Connecticut
…While slavery remained in place throughout the Revolution in Connecticut, more white patriots grew troubled by the contradiction between their professed ideals and the slavery that existed all around them….
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The Fight Over Slavery Reaches Torrington
…birthplace, Torrington – Connecticut Historical Society A Town Divided Not everyone in Torrington believed in the abolitionist cause, however. Widespread pro-slavery sentiment in the town successfully kept anti-slavery organizations from…
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Jackson v. Bulloch and the End of Slavery in Connecticut
…outlawing of slavery in the state. Thus it was that slavery continued in Connecticut until 1848. Nancy Jackson In 1837 when there were approximately 25 slaves in Connecticut, a black…
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James Mars’ Words Illuminate the Cruelty of Slavery in New England
By Peter P. Hinks James Mars was born into slavery in Canaan, Connecticut, in 1790. Reverend Thompson, the town’s Congregational minister, owned Mars’ parents and siblings. James, however, was born…
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Slavery and Abolition
Slavery in Connecticut dates as far back as the mid-1600s. Connecticut’s growing agricultural industry fostered slavery’s expansion, and by the time of the American Revolution, Connecticut had the largest number…
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Nancy Toney’s Lifetime in Slavery
By Christina Vida Nancy Toney of Windsor may have the distinction of being Connecticut’s last enslaved person. Born into slavery in Connecticut in 1774, she lived through the American Revolution…
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Venture Smith, from Slavery to Freedom
…national autonomy waged by Revolutionary New Englanders there was another, bitterly fought struggle over slavery, freedom, and equality. A Child Named Broteer Around 1730, in a place called Dukandarra in…
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Changing Sentiments on Slavery in Colonial Hebron
…of how they survived as slaves contributes greatly to the underappreciated history of slavery in Connecticut, the story of how they gained their freedom reveals much about transformations in popular…
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Slavery and the Pequot War
For some, the existence of slavery in New England is still a little known fact. Even fewer realize that Native peoples in the region, including those in Connecticut, were also…
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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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Reverend James Pennington: A Voice for Freedom
…Pennington served as one of the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society’s delegates to the world anti-slavery convention. At the September 2, 1840 meeting of that organization, he accepted the group’s presidency. In…
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The Most Famous American in the World
…slavery is.” Her book told stories of people treated as property, personalizing slavery in a way never done before. Readers learned about Tom, so valuable in economic terms that his…
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Middletown’s Beman Triangle: A Testament to Black Freedom and Resilience
…the Bemans, protesting southern slavery and combating northern white supremacy went hand in hand. Although the North largely ended slavery by the 1830s, free African Americans remained prohibited from voting…
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New Britain Plays Part in the Underground Railroad
…Britain. As the two sides of the slavery issue continued sparring, The First Church in New Britain passed anti-slavery resolutions, abolitionists and non-abolitionists clashed at local anti-slavery meetings, and non-abolitionists…
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Black Loyalist Refugees: Toney Escapes During the Burning of Fairfield
…Slavery Grows Unpopular in England Despite the newly defined United States’ assertion of individual rights, support for slavery remained fairly intact. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, opposition…
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John Brown: A Portrait of Violent Abolitionism
…voters to decide whether they wanted to make slavery legal or illegal in those territories, sparked a flood of migration to the area by both pro-slavery and “Free State” supporters….
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From the State Historian: Connecticut’s Slow Steps Toward Emancipation
by Walter W. Woodward for Connecticut Explored After American independence, Connecticut, like many Northern states, examined whether slavery was compatible with American ideals. It decided, in a half-hearted way, that…
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James Lindsey Smith Takes the Underground Railroad to Connecticut
…pursuing his trade as a shoemaker and speaking out against the evils of slavery. Later, he traveled through western Massachusetts and Connecticut with an anti-slavery lecturer, encountering much prejudice and…
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Speaking under the Open Sky: Frederick Douglass in Connecticut
…the pro- and anti-slavery debate sharpened, Frederick Douglass gained greater popularity. In October 1854 he was in Chicago to rebut the pro-slavery rhetoric of Stephen A. Douglas. An anti-slavery Hartford…
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Reading, Writing, and the Great Outdoors: Frederick Gunn’s School Transforms Victorian-era Education
…character, the need to abolish the institution of slavery in this country, and reverence for nature. These driving concerns melded into a core educational philosophy. Gunn not only believed that…
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The Complicated Realities of Connecticut and the Civil War
…connection between slavery and the Civil War is both obvious and complicated. It’s obvious because the line that separated North from South was principally one where slavery began or ended,…
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Henry Ward Beecher, a Preacher with Political Clout
…see slavery abolished. Beecher Speaks Out Against Slavery The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allowed voters to decide whether they wanted to…
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James Williams, More than Trinity College’s Janitor
…Old Trinity College buildings, Trinity Street, Hartford (1851) – Connecticut Historical Society, Connecticut History Illustrated James H. Williams was born into slavery on August 3, 1788. His mother was a…
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Site Lines: Fortresses of Faith, Agents of Change
…their members, African American churches served as social and political platforms, boldly condemning slavery, organizing abolitionist societies, serving as stations on the Underground Railroad, starting schools for black children, and…
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Gideon Welles, US Secretary of the Navy and Lincoln’s “Neptune”
…self-government. Welles strongly opposed the extension of slavery, and primarily because of his strong anti-slavery views he abandoned the Democratic Party. In 1854, he joined the newly formed Republican Party…
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin Begins Serialization – Today in History: June 5
…huge audience during its serialization–10,000 copies sold in the first week. National Era publisher Gamaliel Bailey was a physician and journalist, publishing an anti-slavery novel in a city where slavery…
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The Fugitive and the Hero
…a desperate legislative measure meant to keep the country together. Brokered by northern politicians, the “compromise” permitted slavery to exist in some new states and gave vigorous federal support to…
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Prospect’s David Miles Hotchkiss and the Free Soil Party
…about slavery were as contentious as anywhere in the country. For his work with the Free-Soil Party, Hotchkiss faced outright resentment and hostility from local slavery proponents. On more than…
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Liberian Independence Day
…Abolitionists] wished to persuade or compel (!!!) the slaveholders to give up their slaves immediately; and the other class [the Colonization advocates] were for having slavery abolished gradually’. While some…
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Anna Elizabeth Dickinson at Touro Hall – Today in History: March 24
…of the Civil War: “The people of the U.S., with their Constitution as the safeguard of liberty – they demand answer! And answer shall be given unto them? Slavery! Slavery!…
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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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Caleb Brewster: A Patriot Against Freedom
…Strongs, as well as their involvement in slavery. The Strong family could have paid a visit to their wartime associate in Fairfield. Their enslaved people likely would have traveled with…
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Oniontown: How Hard Work, Tall Tales, and Red Onions Built Wethersfield
…was a result of a root disease, others cite the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which banned slavery in England and its territories. Since this act affected the British territories…
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Apostle of Peace: Elihu Burritt’s Quest for Universal Brotherhood
…fellowship across the ocean, exchanging their produce, their commerce, their industries, their arts, their genius.” Elihu Burritt as Abolitionist By the time Burritt returned home, the issue of slavery threatened…
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Noah Webster and the Dream of a Common Language
…epidemiology, newspaper editor, and an early antislavery advocate. This Connecticut polymath is also considered the “father of American copyright law.” Webster even saw his American Dictionary as being more than…
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Early Civil Rights and Cultural Pioneers: The Easton Family
…Reverend Hosea first came to public attention in 1828 with a Thanksgiving Day Address in Providence, Rhode Island, attacking racism and slavery. It was a frank, explicit, angry condemnation of…
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An Orderly & Decent Government: Making Self-Government Work, 1776-1818
…stayed in office for decades thereafter. Reward posted for capture of a runaway slave Half of Connecticut’s 5,500 African Americans were still in slavery as the Revolution ended. Connecticut did…
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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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1850s Equal Rights Activist James Mars
James Mars was born into slavery in Connecticut in 1790. At the age of 25 he earned his freedom, and two years later moved to Hartford. He was very active…
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The Smith Sisters, Their Cows, and Women’s Rights in Glastonbury
…distributed the anti-slavery Charter Oak newspaper throughout Glastonbury. Their mother, who had authored one of the earliest anti-slavery petitions presented to Congress by John Quincy Adams, fully supported the sisters’…
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Connecticut and the West Indies: Sugar Spurs Trans-Atlantic Trade
…now-freed workforce with imported food. The development of the sugar beet as an alternative sweetener took many Central European customers out of the market. The Web of Slavery The West…
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John Brown Born – Today in History: May 9
…1859 he attempted to seize a federal armory and its weapons to mount an armed insurrection on slavery. He failed and was hanged for treason, among other charges, but many…
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Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin Published 1852
…Harriet married widower Calvin Stowe in 1836, and they had 7 children. Her most famous book is Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was published in 1852. This powerful antislavery novel helped…
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John Brown
John Brown (1800-1859) Few men fought the spread of slavery as violently and audaciously as John Brown. A Torrington native who received little formal education, Brown believed that African Americans…
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Connecticut’s First Known Juneteenth Celebration in Norwich – Who Knew?
…that celebrates and marks the end of slavery in the United States. The date commemorates the anniversary of June 19, 1865 when US Army troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas,…
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Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Rally – Today in History: March 5
On March 5, 1860, Abraham Lincoln addressed the Republicans of Hartford at City Hall. He spoke to the danger of an indifferent attitude on the topic of slavery, a follow-up…
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Hebron’s Josephine Sophia (White) Griffing and a Vision for Post-Emancipation America
…formed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to petition for a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Women working with aid societies often encountered opposition because of the widespread…
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Blacksmith Isaac Glasko Challenges the State Constitution
…and Native American heritage. Some accounts indicate they may have been slaves in colonial Rhode Island who bought their way out of slavery by the time of Isaac’s birth. In…
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A Different Look at the Amistad Trial: The Teenager Who Helped Save the Mende Captives
…witness (as shown in a lithograph portrait where he dressed in a formal suit). James Covey, dismissed as a “half civilized, totally ignorant African” by slavery apologists, spoke words that…
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Augustus Washington (1820 – 1875): African American Daguerreotypist
…this church was a hub of regional anti-slavery activity. Daguerreotype portrait of Eliphalet Adams Bulkeley by Augustus Washington, ca. 1853. Bulkeley was the founder of Aetna Insurance Company and one…
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A Successful Lawyer and Politician Who Never Went to College
…an abhorrence for slavery inspired Cleveland to join the fledgling Republican Party. He organized the formation of the party in Connecticut and served as a delegate to the Republican National…
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Connecticut’s Black Civil War Regiment
…free born, I was born under the curse of slavery, surrounded by the thorns and briars of prejudice, hatred, persecution and the suffering incident to this fearful regime.” In going…
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Ebenezer Bassett’s Historic Journey
…law in 1784, slavery was not abolished until 1848. Unlike other towns in the state, Derby did not exclude Bassett from an education because of his race. Reflecting on this…
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The Hartford Courant: The Oldest US Newspaper in Continuous Publication
…for suppliers of goods and services but reflected the strong pro-slavery sentiments that existed in Connecticut by running ads meant to aid in the capture of fugitive slaves. Though slavery…
Read An Orderly & Decent Government: Searching for the Common Good, 1819-1865
…Causes By the 1850s, Connecticut’s politics grew increasingly chaotic. Democrats and Whigs contended with small, single issue parties advocating such causes as the abolition of slavery, prohibition of alcohol and…
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“’No Taxation without Representation’: Black Voting in Connecticut
…slavery after March 1, 1784. More than half a century later, the state mandated the elimination of slavery altogether, but freedom did not equate to being granted the full rights…
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A Life Lived in a Rapidly Changing World: Samuel L. Clemens
…of slavery‚ advancements in technology‚ big government, and foreign wars. And along the way‚ he often had something to say about the changes happening in his country. The Early Years…
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The Successes and Struggles of New Haven Entrepreneur William Lanson
…a good member of society” and Dwight hoped Lanson’s influence would uplift his racial brethren, many of whom had only recently come out of slavery. By 1825, Lanson was contracted…
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William Eaton, a Peace Democrat and Civil War Opponent
…republic and had not surrendered their sovereignty. Eaton noted that though slavery was “the most vexing and disturbing” issue presented during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, it was handled without…
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Charles Stratton and Lavinia Warren Wed – Today in History: February 10
…Farrow is the co-author of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery and is at work on a new book about slavery to be published by Wesleyan…
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Connecticut History Day 2024: Turning Points in History
…the institution of slavery in the United States. While born in Connecticut, Whitney’s invention dramatically increased the South’s need for labor to pick and process cotton, making the region even…
Read An Orderly & Decent Government: A Society in Ferment, 1819-1865
…mental illness challenged the legislature to develop new approaches to punishment and public assistance. Looming over all, like a darkening cloud, was the fundamental issue of slavery in American society….
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Politics and Government
…the years, various political debates arose over such issues as slavery, temperance, religious influence on governance, women’s suffrage, and even where to locate the state capital. (Until 1875, Connecticut had…
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Hartford’s Nook Farm
…of her nation-changing book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly. The powerful anti-slavery novel, published across the globe, was to become the best-selling book of the 19th century….
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Ivory Cutting: The Rise and Decline of a Connecticut Industry
…trade took advantage of these ready-made routes and thousands of tribal people found themselves forced into slavery to carry the tusks. Depending on where hunters and buyers obtained the tusks,…
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George Griffin: “Devoted Friend” to Samuel Clemens
…Samuel Clemens. From Slavery to Freedom Born into slavery in the late 1840s, George Griffin faced many obstacles and served many roles before coming to Connecticut. During the Civil War,…
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Flying High with Early Dirigible
…the co-author of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery and is at work on a new book about slavery to be published by Wesleyan University Press….
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Katharine Hepburn Born – Today in History: May 12
…the co-author of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery and is at work on a new book about slavery to be published by Wesleyan University Press….
Read Charles Stratton and Lavinia Warren Wed – Today in History: February 10
…Farrow is the co-author of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery and is at work on a new book about slavery to be published by Wesleyan…
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Marian Anderson’s Role in the Civil Rights Movement
…from Slavery and is at work on a new book about slavery to be published by Wesleyan University Press. This article has been updated, find the original archived article here….
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Connecticut Origins Shape New Light Luminary Jonathan Edwards
…instrumental in 19th-century reform movements, such as the abolition of slavery. Though a slaveholder and defender of slavery himself, Edwards’ ethical thought was transformed by another of his disciples, Samuel…
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The Hartford Wits
…called for the abolition of slavery and full education rights for women. The latter theme is already on display in “The Progress of Dulness” in the characterization of Harriet Simper,…
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P. T. Barnum: An Entertaining Life
…of slavery. When interest in Heth began to fade a second time, Barnum sent an anonymous letter to the Boston press claiming that Heth, who was a small elderly woman,…
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Looking Back: Tempest Tossed, the Story of Isabella Beecher Hooker
By Susan Campbell for the Shoreline Times She co-wrote Connecticut’s first property law for women. She campaigned against slavery at a time when genteel Hartford society did not do such…
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Holmes at Home: The Life of William Gillette
…former US Senator Francis Gillette, supported reform movements including public education and the abolition of slavery; his mother, Elizabeth Daggett Hooker Gillette, was a direct descendant of Connecticut Colony co-founder…
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“Free Bobby, Free Ericka”: The New Haven Black Panther Trials
…reparations for slavery, the end of police brutality against black people, the release of black prisoners from jails, fair trials, and black nationalism. In practice, the Panthers focused much of…
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Civil War Monuments and Memorials in and Around the State Capitol
…recently published Connecticut in the Civil War: Slavery, Sacrifice, and Survival, and visit the Connecticut Civil War Commemoration Commission’s web page. Click on a picture above to learn its story…
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Hope for the West: The Life and Mission of Lyman Beecher
…Beecher’s presidency became marked by controversy. Shortly after Beecher’s arrival, the national debate on slavery divided the faculty and students at the school. In the end, many of the students…
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Gun Wheel of the First Light Battery, Connecticut Volunteers
…of the First Light Battery, like many white Northerners, had a complex and ambiguous relationship with African Americans. They risked and sometimes lost their lives to end slavery, while at…
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Capital Punishment in Connecticut: Changing Views
…murder. Proponents of abolishing the death penalty lost momentum for their cause for much of the remainder of the century, however, as the nation focused on the issue of slavery…
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A Voice for Veterans: A Civil War era ‘Whistle-Blower’ – Who Knew?
By Diane Hassan for the CTPost.com Almira Ambler, Civil War Nurse – Danbury Museum & Historical Society …that Almira Ambler, wife of the anti-slavery Baptist minister Edward C. Ambler was…
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A Memorial to General Hawley at the State Capitol
…speech, “the war having been a success, we must affirm that it effected the destruction of slavery in fact as well as in name…for the rights of all loyal citizens,…
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Hartford’s Challenge to “The Birth of a Nation”
…Americans had been making to the United States, despite centuries of crippling slavery. “The American negro owes this nation nothing but loyalty and citizenship—and in all other things the nation…
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The Rise of the Black Panther Party in Connecticut
…Hartford on John Brown (the anti-slavery activist both celebrated and damned for his armed rebellion at Harper’s Ferry). Douglass called Brown a “moral earthquake,” a metaphor that conjured up death…
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Ellis Ruley: Art that Celebrated Life
…just as the artist leaves behind enigmatic, enchanting paintings. In 1882, Ruley was the first child born to a couple marked by slavery. His father, Joshua Ruley, fled Wilmington, Delaware,…
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Expansion and Reform 1801-1861
…and slavery in the South facilitated divisive debates about the rights of all men to be free. These debates affected Connecticut slaveholders and abolitionists alike, manifesting themselves in such stories…
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Civil War and Reconstruction 1850-1877
Civil War and Reconstruction (1850–1877) The mid-nineteenth century was a period of massive upheaval in America. The country’s battles over race, slavery, and state’s rights ultimately degenerated into Civil War….
Read An Orderly & Decent Government: Significant Events & Developments, 1819-1865
…voting, and expelled Irish units from the state militia. A War to Set Men Free Advocated first by a small group of ministers and other abolitionists, the anti-slavery cause took…
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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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The Joshua Hempsted Diary: A Window into Colonial Connecticut
…The diary has been used to study such diverse subjects as trade with the West Indies, slavery, and the Great Awakening, a period of evangelical Protestant revival. It is also…
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Prudence Crandall Fights for Equal Access to Education
…his support to Prudence after meeting her in 1832 on business with the New England Anti-Slavery Society. He promptly ran an advertisement for her school in The Liberator and provided…
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The Litchfield Law School: Connecticut’s First Law School
…voting rights. The ensuing decline in the Federalist Party, combined with the debate over slavery, partly contributed to reduced enrollments at both Litchfield schools. End of the Litchfield Law School…
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The Rev. Amos Beman’s Devotion to Education, Social Activism, and New Haven
…the Underground Railroad. Amos Beman also lectured across the United States and wrote for many Black newspapers (opposing slavery, colonization, and the lack of education opportunities for the Black community)…
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Sarah Boone: First Connecticut Black Woman to Receive Patent
…an improvement in the use of an ironing board. Born Sarah Marshall in 1832 in Craven County, North Carolina, she allegedly escaped slavery when she married a free man, James…
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Baptist Missionaries at Work in 19th-Century Burma
…steal their children and sell them into slavery, much as the Burmese sometimes did. While the Baptists succeeded in gaining converts, some viewed Christianity as an intrusion on traditional animist…
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Video – Connecticut’s Cultural Treasures: Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum
YouTube – CPTV – Created by the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network and the Department of Economic and Community Development….
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The Colvocoresses Oak
…At the age of six, he, along with other members of his family, was kidnapped by Turks. While six of his brothers were killed, George was sold into slavery. His…
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Elihu Burritt Dies – Today in History: March 6
…than 50, he later became a social activist working toward the abolition of slavery, for world peace, and for the dignity of the working man. In 1846, while on a…
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Joshua Hempsted Born – Today in History: September 1
On September 1, 1678, Joshua Hempsted was born in New London, Connecticut. Farmer, surveyor, carpenter, gravestone cutter, and famous New England diarist, Hempsted began keeping a diary on September 8,…
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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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“A Noble and Precious Life”: Edgar M. Woodford, Civil Engineer, Abolitionist, and Soldier
By Nancy Finlay for Your Public Media A handful of maps of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, published in Philadelphia during the early 1850s, bear the name of E….
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“An Admirable Portrait” of Frederick Douglass
By Nancy Finlay for Your Pubic Media The Great Abolitionist is Photographed in Hartford “S. H. Waite, No. 271 Main Street, has taken an admirable photograph of Frederick Douglass, which…
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Hidden Nearby: John Brown’s Torrington Birthplace
by Peter Vermilyea Ruins are all that remain of the birthplace of one of the transformative figures in American history, John Brown. The house was built in 1785 and was…
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The 29th Leaves for War – Today in History: March 19
On March 19, 1864, as the 29th (Colored) Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was preparing for deployment to the South to fight in the Civil War, they were presented with their…
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The Amistad
In early 1839, Portuguese slave hunters abducted a large group of African people in Sierra Leone and transported them aboard the slave ship Tecora to Havana, Cuba, for auction to…
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Connecticut’s Black Governors
by Andy Piascik For approximately one hundred years, from the middle of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century, there was a black governor in Connecticut. Selection…
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North and South: The Legacy of Eli Whitney
By Nancy Finlay Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Massachusetts, in 1765, the year of the Stamp Act, and grew up during the tumultuous years of the American Revolution. He…
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The Seth Wetmore House: A Storied Structure of 18th Century Middletown
By Emily Clark As cars whiz down a busy Route 66 in Middletown and chain restaurants dot the landscape, high on a hill at the end of Washington Street Extension…
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Hartford Wide-Awakes – Today in History: July 26
…Republican party behind Buckingham and promoting an anti-slavery platform quickly spread to the wider efforts to elect the “old Commoner” Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States. The…
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Hartford’s Sex Trade: Prostitutes and Politics
…prostitution and similar exploitative relationships. Nothing less than a fundamental upheaval of so-called moral values, Goldman concluded, along with the abolition of industrial slavery, could eradicate prostitution. Hartford’s city fathers…
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29th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers Fought More than One War
…power to play the part of a Moses” for his people still in slavery. Newton recorded his time with the 29th Connecticut Volunteers in an autobiography, later published. 29th Regiment…
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Harriet Beecher Stowe Born – Today in History: June 14
…and homemaking, to biographies and titles on religious studies. Her first book was Primary Geography for Children, on an Improved Plan and her best-selling title was the controversial anti-slavery novel…
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Everyday Life
…of life in colonial Connecticut, as experienced by an Anglo-American businessman and public servant. James Mars’ memoir, on the other hand, traces the path from slavery to freedom under the…
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Social Movements
Throughout state history everyday people have banded together on local and national issues to defy the status quo and call for change. The causes have been diverse, from anti-slavery, temperance,…
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Law
…ordinances, later known as Blue Laws. From the mundane to the momentous, Connecticut regulations have forbidden travelers to ride a ferry without a ferryman, abolished slavery in 1848, and penalized…
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) Best remembered as the author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe was born into a talented Litchfield family headed by noted preacher…
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Hartford Publishes the First Literary Work by an African American – Who Knew?
…“A Winter Piece” in 1782. Hammon is also recognized as being one of the first to write about black theology and is credited with influencing antislavery protest literature in America….
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Pequot War
…war or sold into slavery. Today, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation in southeastern Connecticut is proof of a people’s endurance and a collaborative project funded by the National Park Service…
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Exploring Early Connecticut Mapmaking
…engraving business, Simeon turned his energies to the anti-slavery movement around 1858. The next major trend in mapping was the county map, usually a very large, wall-sized work for display,…
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Selling Connecticut Products Abroad
…slavery. With an extensive line of agricultural and forestry tools, Collins found ready buyers in South America, North America, Africa, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. But success brought imitation and…
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Gideon Welles
…strong anti-slavery views convinced him to join the newly formed Republican Party and helped earn him an appointment as Secretary of the Navy under Abraham Lincoln. Welles, whom Lincoln called…
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John Warner Barber’s Engravings Chronicle Connecticut History
…Society at the Temple Street Congregational Church. A fervent opponent of slavery, Barber supported and voted for the establishment of a Black college in New Haven in 1831. While the…
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