Connecticut blocked the importation of slaves in 1774 and began a gradual emancipation of slaves in 1784 with slavery finally abolished in 1848. Usually, when one thinks about the history of Connecticut, slavery is not in the forefront of that thought process.

It is the history of the chattel slavery that existed in this nation that the Slave Dwelling Project has committed itself to research and disseminating. With this commitment to interpreting the history of the enslaved, there is a lot of misinformation, pushback, and denial, especially in northern states. Discussing the history of slavery in this nation takes people out of the comfort zones of which they are accustomed. The challenges do not deter the Slave Dwelling Project from honoring the enslaved Ancestors in the manner that we do. We just have to convince our potential host that we come in peace, we mean no harm.

My first venture into Connecticut was to spend a night at the Bush Holley House in Greenwich, Connecticut. When I did that Connecticut sleepover on March 30, 2012, I knew then that I would return. It took four years, but on Friday, June 8, 2018, I spent a night at the Hempsted Houses in New London, Connecticut.

The 1678 Joshua Hempsted House is one of New England’s oldest and most well-documented dwellings. Adjacent to the Joshua Hempsted House is a rare stone house built in 1759 for Nathaniel Hempsted by Acadian exiles. My tour of the Hempsted House revealed something that was typical of the spaces where enslaved people occupied in northern states. The space for the enslaved Adam Jackson was in the same house as the people who enslaved him. What amazed me was that the enslaved Adam Jackson had a last name.

It was this space in the attic that I planned to sleep. It was also the space where I would address the 4th and 5th graders walking over from the Regional Multicultural Magnet School. Being in the space where Adam was enslaved, made it much easier to talk to the many children who visited on that day. The students were surprised to learn that President Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner and even more surprised that twelve of our former Presidents were slave owners. They were also impressed by the brick that I brought because it had the fingerprints of the enslaved person who made the brick. More revealing about the brick was that most of their little fingers fit into the impressions. I also had for their learning experience, a quilt containing emblems of several of the historic sites that the Slave Dwelling Project visited in the past. Included on this quilt are the emblems of the homes of President Thomas Jefferson and President James Monroe.

The campfire discussion was phenomenal. It seemed like the diverse group of people who would participate in the discussion just kept coming. The circle around the campfire was two and three deep in places. No subject matter pertaining to slavery was off limits to the diverse group of thirty or so people. The subjects included the Slave Dwelling Project, slavery in Connecticut and much more.

About ten of us would sleep in the Hempsted house. I settled into the place in the attic where, earlier that day, I presented to young 4th and 5th graders about Adam Jackson, slavery in Connecticut, slave-owning Presidents and fingerprints in bricks. Others were going to join me in that space. Our enthusiasm was shattered when we discovered a bat was living in the space. As much I wanted to still sleep in the space, despite the bat, thoughts of contracting rabies danced through my head. Seeing too many vampire movies in the past also did not make me feel comfortable about sleeping in the space. We all ended up sleeping in three separate rooms on the bottom floor of the house.

Juneteenth is a festival held annually on the nineteenth of June by African Americans (especially in the southern states), to commemorate emancipation from slavery in Texas on that day in 1865.

Aileen Novick is project manager for Connecticut Landmarks. She is a meticulous planner and worked diligently with me and the Slave Dwelling Project’s board member, Prinny Anderson, in planning the Hempsted Houses sleepover. She had this beautiful idea to coordinate with the local chapter of the NAACP for the sleepover at the Hempsted Houses to coincide with the New London Juneteenth celebration.

The celebration included a panel discussion that was beautifully moderated by Aileen. The panel included me and Tammy Denease, portraying Joan Jackson, mother of the enslaved farmer, Adam Jackson. Tammy also had the pleasure of interacting in period dress with the 4th and 5th graders who visited the site the day before. The panel discussion was inserted into an event that included a live band and various vendors. Unfortunately, I could not stay for the screening of the movie Marshall because I had a 6:00 am flight out of Providence, Rhode Island the next day. I opted to get a room near the Providence airport which was 1 ½ hour away for New London, Connecticut.

Conclusion

The week prior to going to Connecticut, I spent a few days in Columbia, Lancaster, and Lansdale, Pennsylvania chasing the footprints of slavery that existed in that state. Except for Lansdale, the most of what we encountered in Pennsylvania was the underground railroad. This was certainly not the case in New London, Connecticut. The story of enslaved Adam Jackson is well inserted into the storyline at the Hempsted Houses.

There is more to northern history than the Revolution, Abolitionists, Underground Railroad and the Union Army. It was not until after the Revolution that northern states begin to abolish slavery. Even after abolishing slavery, the northern states were complicit because they still owed the banks, insurance companies, ships bringing in the enslaved and the mills that added value to the cotton being picked in the South.

Aileen Novick and others involved at the Hempsted Houses are doing their parts to ensure that the history of the enslaved is interpreted at that site. The Slave Dwelling Project is developing new criteria for the sites that we will visit in the future. By our standards, Aileen Novick and the Hempsted Houses meets those standards.

Kevin Booker, Jr.

Joseph McGill was incredibly welcoming, engaging, and inviting! Through his character reenactment, he shared a different perspective than what is commonly told about the Black experience during the Civil War time period. Through storytelling, he makes people who are new to this history want to investigate more and broaden their horizons to learn more of the complete story of people’s experiences during the 18th and 19th centuries. I have never met someone who is willing to immerse themselves completely in the living conditions of that time period while they are doing a reenactment. Every historical society or organization would benefit from having Mr. McGill visit to share a reenactment or stories from the 18th and 19th centuries.

#TheSlaveDwellingProject July 2nd, 2018

Nicole Thomas

It was my understanding as a young girl that slavery and racism did not exist in the North. Maybe in some places but definitely not in Connecticut. I remember asking my Nornie (b. Westerly, RI 1929) if she had ever experienced racism. Her answer to me was a resounding “No, that didn’t happen here. We didn’t experience things like that.”
The South was much different. Or was it? My Pa (b. 1932 Raleigh, North Carolina) must’ve experienced things like this, but I couldn’t ask him, he had passed away four years before I was born in 1985. Left to the devices of my Nornie’s response, I had resigned myself to believing that it simply wasn’t so. Then I became obsessed with local history. New London, CT history to be exact. Growing up I had always visited the Hempstead houses with my schools. I knew they had the oldest home in New London. What I didn’t learn until I was older was that they actually owned not one but multiple slaves. One being Adam Jackson. I was shocked that my Nornie didn’t know about this. Maybe she wasn’t aware, or maybe like many people of color, this past was too painful to discuss.

I decided somewhere along the line that I needed to not only get comfortable with local history but my family history as well. During this process I was asked to participate in The Slave Dwelling Project. I didn’t know at the time what it was exactly, I just knew that I wanted to say I had slept over at the locally famed Hempstead House.

My mother’s family had grown up in the area, Hope Street specifically. My mother attended the Saltonstall School (directly across from the Hempstead Houses) as a child. All that was important about that was that I could point it out to my children as a place where their grandmother had childhood memories. I didn’t know, what I didn’t know. I was about to learn so much more.

On Friday, June 8th, I showed up to the Hempstead House not knowing what the night had in store. There was a public campfire and a lot of good questions were asked regarding slavery, famous monuments(i.e The Colombo Statue on Bank St.), the role of the Saltonstall family in the slave trade and New London’s place in it all . I was shocked at the number of people who agreed that slavery as a whole had not ended. We all know racism still exists, as sad as that is to say. I was glad to see so many of the younger generation in attendance at this event.

As the evening wound down all of the people who would actually stay the night started to settle on where they would sleep. Mr. McGill, Aileen and I decided we would sleep in the garret where the Hempstead slave Adam Jackson might have slept, however a bat up there had other plans. We all headed downstairs and had a great conversation about the state of the world today before falling asleep. Surprisingly, I had probably the best night sleep I had in months. We woke and had breakfast in the Nathaniel Hempstead house. Also known as the Old Huguenot house.

I am so excited to have been a part of such an amazing project. The fact that Mr. McGill is paying homage to these slave dwellings is such a great thing. We can’t change what we refuse to acknowledge. I look forward to following all of the places Mr. McGill visits from here on out. I hope I will get the opportunity to participate in another one of these events. Since I had this opportunity I have chosen to further educate myself on slavery in the Northern States. I am currently reading Complicity, how the North promoted, prolonged and profited from slavery by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang and Jennifer Frank. Thank you Mr. McGill for opening my eyes to the things that had been hidden in plain sight for far too long. You are doing this world a great service and I am honored to have been in your presence!! Thank you.

Cara Scognamiglio from Hempsted Houses

I am a New London native, and attended Saint Mary’s school as a child. I grew up with Hempsted Houses in the background. I made my first trip there in fifth grade. I was hooked. I was lucky enough to attend camp there, volunteer there in high school, and four years ago, be hired on as an interpreter. When I learned that the slave dwelling project was coming, I leapt at the chance to participate. I am thrilled that I was able to be a part of this.

To learn about what Joseph McGill is doing. And to help bring attention to the lives of the enslaved individuals who lived in there. I chose to sleep in my colonial night wear, and rose before everyone else. I dressed into my colonial day clothing, and prepared breakfast over an open hearth for everyone who spent the night. I wanted to really experience everything. And boy did I get an experience! The fire was slow to start, and hauling the cast iron cooking pots was exhausting work. By 9am I was spent. My back ached, I was sweaty, and very dirty. But I got something on the table. For me, the Slave Dwelling Project afforded me an amazing experience, and I am so grateful for it.

Our Night with The Slave Dwelling Project at the Hempsted House in New London, CT
Aileen Novick

The campfire that we had with Joseph McGill was one of the best events that we’ve had at the Hempsted Houses. A very diverse group of New London folks showed up – a varied range of ages and races. We have a youth group and one of our 8th graders had called to see if she could bring some of her friends after their 8th grade dance. There were some high schoolers and college age students along with parents, retirees, etc. A few people traveled from afar to hear Mr. McGill. We shared some of our history at Hempsted and Mr. McGill shared some of his work with The Slave Dwelling Project. People talked very honestly about issues of race and justice today. There have been so many stories dealing with racism and our troubled history in the news over the last year, and many of these stories came up over the evening campfire.

What should we do about the statues that glorify slaveholders and members of the Confederacy? Should they come down? Some thought yes, and some thought we need them standing to truly remember the history. One of our youth said, “We need to keep the bad guys up so we remember them and so we don’t whitewash our history.” Ideas grew for new statues or new plaques that would share the true history and context of the controversial monuments so people would understand who had them constructed and what their motives were for putting them up right where they were. Some people felt strongly that some of these statues need to be pulled down or put in museums. The statue of J. Marion Sims in New York City was one of the statues addressed. Sims’ statue has been in Central Park and he had been known as “the grandfather of gynecology.” Missing from this laudatory title was the fact that he did experimental surgeries on enslaved black women and chose not to use anesthesia. One woman felt very strongly that this was one of the statues that had to come down that no context plaque could ever make his statue appropriate.

Different opinions and ideas were expressed but with respect and more introspection than we often see or hear in these conversations. One young African American woman stood up and asked the group, “Can we really say that slavery is over today?” This question resonated strongly with me. Kevin Booker Jr. of the New London NAACP and I had just been on the news doing a promotion for our New London Juneteenth. We had discussed how to frame it as a celebration of the ending of slavery in America, but noted that the Emancipation Proclamation had not actually freed all of the enslaved. For long after the Civil War, black Americans were not given the same equal rights of white people. At Hempsted we have started a program for 8th graders that looks at how slavery does still exist today – globally and nationally. This goes against the simple teaching that the Civil War ended, and boom, slavery has been gone forever.

The campfire conversation ended after a few hours, as it was getting late. I think we ended on a hopeful note. There is definitely a lot of work to be done. But, there are people in our New London community who want to do the work, and people like Mr. McGill are traveling this country bringing great attention and helping to get community conversations going about the work that can be done. These conversations continued into the very early hours of the morning inside the Hempsted Houses with some of the people who were spending the night. It was powerful to be having these conversations about sharing the legacies of slavery inside a house that was a place where at least two New Londoners were enslaved. Many of us were away from our children and families for the night, but it was one night. We would see them soon. This house would not be a place that would keep us from our families in the way that it once kept Adam Jackson and Dinah from their loved ones. While we preserve this, the oldest extant house in New London, we want people to know that for some people this beautiful old house was more like a prison. That is a hard truth that we will continue to work to share with the public.