As you continue to build a local story, consult local knowledge. In every town, there's a town historian, and many people with an interest in family or local history. Even if he or she doesn't know specifically about your community's African American heritage, they will have information on early notables and the early life of the town.
Historical societies around the state have been or are beginning
to look at their towns' history with enslavement and many have useful
materials. In Middletown, for instance, the Middlesex County Historical
Society maintains an extensive genealogical study, filling many volumes,
of the city's early black residents. The society also has documents
related to the city's shipping trade, scholarly papers on Middletown's
early black population and many other materials.
It's always useful
to take a look at institutions that
store documents and maintain archives. University and college libraries
around Connecticut have important collections of books early African
American history. Contact the heads of the library at the institutions
nearest your town, and ask if there is an online directory of these
kinds of materials, or a printed document or even an old-fashioned
The Connecticut Historical Society maintains an astonishingly
diverse archive of materials on the
lives of African Americans in Connecticut, and it includes letters,
diaries, books, broadsides, newspaper clippings, photographs and
hundreds of objects. A complete list of the society's holdings is
available in a printed booklet (The Connecticut
Historical Society Bulletin, Special Series, Number 1, 1994) but many, many documents
are listed online at the society's website.
There are two important
things to remember when starting any
1. Start with questions, and let your answers
to these questions lead to new questions.
You can never be sure, at the beginning of your exploration,
where you'll end up. You may hit some
dead ends; you may take paths that lead you to unexpected new places.
Be adventurous and curious!
2. There are always new histories to be written, new important stories
to be discovered. There may already be others looking into the same
questions that interest you: these are your partners on the journey,
so don't be afraid to speak with them! Go forward into the unknown
with confidence that your discoveries may end up being important
to generations of future explorers. go to documents & activities >>