American Black History

03/30/2026

We know that over 1 million enslaved Africans went to Brazil, first before the Americas nearly half of all Africans brought to the New World between 1540 and the 1860s. This figure vastly exceeded imports to any other country, with high mortality rates driving a constant need for new arrivals for sugar, coffee, and mining industries.

We estimated about 4.8 to 5.5 million enslaved people were shipped to Brazil, compared to just under 200,000 sent directly to North America.

The slave trade to Brazil lasted from the early 1500s until 1888, when it became the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. Most enslaved Africans arriving in Brazil were taken from West Central African ports, particularly Luanda (modern-day Angola).

Brazil has the largest population of African descent outside of Nigeria, with profound influences on the nation's cultural identity, including samba and capoeira.

Some of the beautiful people you ever seen lived in Brazil. This was despised my some of the sugar and gold enslavers. But some enslavers was mezzarized by the female Africans beauty as well as the males extended trunks.

The diverse and often "mixed" appearance of Brazilians, regardless of whether they have dark or light skin, is the result of centuries of intensive color mixing (Oca -genation) and deliberate government policies designed to "whiten" the population.

Unlike the United States, which had strict anti-oca genation laws and a "one-drop rule" (where any African ancestry made a person Black), Brazil never had formal legal segregation or laws forbidding in*******al marriage.

Early Portuguese settlers were almost exclusively male. This led to widespread relationships both consensual and forced with Indigenous American black and enslaved African. This is also how the Euro beings were able to ultimately become apart of many indigenous natives tribes.

Over 500 years, this created a population with a vast spectrum of physical features. Today, skin color (cor-oca is not bonded to just albinoism) is viewed as a continuous spectrum rather than a binary "Black" or "White" category.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Brazilian government actively pursued a policy of branqueamento (whitening).

Between 1870 and 1953, Brazil subsidized the immigration of nearly 5 million enslaved Slavic Europeans (mostly Italians, Portuguese, and Germans enslaved people). Since the oppressor of racism

The goal was to "dilute" African and black! American native Indigenous traits through intermarriage, believing that European oca genes would eventually become dominant and make the country "whiter" and more "civilized" according to the scientific racism of that era.

In Brazil, race is often determined by phenotype (what you look like) rather than genotype (your DNA). In the Americas alleged race was based on lineage, culture and who you identified with.

The Brazilian census uses categories like preto (Black), pardo (brown/mixed), and branco (white).

Because identity is based on appearance, two siblings with the same parents can be classified differently one as preto and the other as pardo depending on their specific skin tone or hair texture.

We at American black history completed our research in 2021 in Genetic OCA studies showing that most Brazilians are significantly mixed, regardless of their outward appearance. We know that a lot of the Slavic ( oca 3, 2, 4) Eastern Europe were captured and sold that their ethnic name became synonymous with the condition of servitude.

We could go further into this all the way back to Spartan ancient times when male babies eyes and features or shape was also defined by the essence of skin call leprosy and so forth. We not going to go into the color farmer grocery market, today.

However we will till our followers the word slavery was already did not come from a heritage lineage from Africa but from Euro being white enslavers whom enslaved white people base on genetic defects or intelligence in short.

The Medieval Latin word sclavus (Slav) eventually replaced the classical Latin word for slave (servus) in many Euro beings languages. Infact English language came directly from the Germanic Slavic people.But remember Slavic people where all over Europe.

This root led to the English slave, French esclave, Spanish esclavo, and German Sklave. We will give you a small brief histories of these colony's of people in the Americas, But we suggest that I followers through their own research on this topic. We know that over 10s of millions of white enslaved European where captured.

Slavic populations were primarily targeted by three major powers and networks:

The Ottoman Empire: Between 1500 and 1700 alone, an estimated 2 million Ukrainians, Russians, and Poles were captured by Crimean Tatars and sold into the Ottoman Empire.

The Islamic Mediterranean (Saqaliba): In the early Middle Ages, Slavic captives known as Saqaliba were highly valued in the Islamic world, including Umayyad Spain and the Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa. They served as elite soldiers, bureaucrats, and domestic servants. These are the same bronze/brown/dark color people in the Americas before slavery infact they help the enslavers translate the Bible to misinterpretations to force control of African enslaved people.

European City-States: Commercial powers like Venice and Genoa built much of their early wealth by acting as middlemen, transporting Slavic captives from the Balkans and Black Sea regions to markets in Egypt and the wider Mediterranean.

In the medieval trade, religion was often the deciding factor; Christians and Muslims generally avoided enslaving their own but viewed "pagan" Slavs as legitimate targets.

In many Eastern systems (like the Ottoman Empire), some enslaved Slavs particularly those in the military or administration could rise to positions of immense power, a level of mobility almost never granted in the Americas.

We also question the color of Christopher Columbus because of the book written in the United States in early times describing how he's look and his crew. Will leave that study for you researchers to find. Here's a hint it was written by American white woman.

Around the world Part 1:

Marc Ferrez, Coffee plantation, São Paulo, Brazil, 1885. Gilberto Ferrez collection of photographs of nineteenth-century Brazil, Series I.

Marc Ferrez photographs. ID/Accession 92.R.14.-b15.16. Courtesy: Getty Research Institute Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

03/30/2026

Trails of Tears around the world in black.

03/30/2026

Around the world Part 2:

Marc Ferrez, Sister of the Sisterhood Boa Morte, Cachoeira, Bahia, photograph, 1885.

Courtesy: Ethnologisches Museum der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany..

03/30/2026

Around the world Part 1:

Marc Ferrez, Coffee plantation, São Paulo, Brazil, 1885. Gilberto Ferrez collection of photographs of nineteenth-century Brazil, Series I.

Marc Ferrez photographs. ID/Accession 92.R.14.-b15.16. Courtesy: Getty Research Institute Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

03/30/2026

Renty Grayson, a scout for the U.S. Army, and his wife, Mary, in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Renty Grayson served with the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts, a unit comprised of Black Seminoles who acted as scouts for the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars.

The Seminole Indian Scouts were known for their tracking skills and played a crucial role in maintaining security along the Texas border.

03/28/2026

Do you know.... Part 2

American and European enslavers generally viewed traditional African religions with a mix of dismissal, fear, and strategic calculation. Their perspectives shifted over time as the institution of slavery evolved in North America.

In the early colonial era, most enslavers dismissed African spiritual practices as mere superstition, idolatry, or paganism.

This perceived lack of "civilized" religion was used to justify enslavement, as Europeans argued they were bringing "heathens" within reach of Christian salvation.

Some enslavers even used these beliefs to argue that Africans lacked human souls or the intellectual capacity to understand Christianity, further dehumanizing them to maintain bo***ge.

As enslaved populations grew, enslavers became increasingly paranoid that religious gatherings could lead to organized revolt.

Hoodoo and other "conjure" practices were particularly feared because they were often used for protection or to call for justice and vengeance. Enslavers especially feared the herbal knowledge of "rootworkers," suspecting it would be used in poisoning plots.

Initially, many resisted converting enslaved people to Christianity, fearing that religious equality would inspire demands for physical freedom or that baptism would legally require emancipation.

By the 19th century, many enslavers reversed their stance and began promoting a specific version of Christianity designed to ensure obedience.

They favored white preachers who emphasized biblical passages like "servants, obey your masters" to create a more docile workforce.

Enslaved people were often forced to attend white-controlled churches where their worship could be supervised, though this led many to "steal away" at night for secret, independent meetings.

Islam was a notable exception to the general dismissal. Enslavers often viewed Muslim Africans as "exceptional" because their literacy and structured prayer habits more closely resembled European religious routines. However, these individuals were also often viewed as more dangerous and prone to causing "trouble" or discontent among their owners.

As early as the 16th century, Spanish authorities tried to ban "slaves suspected of Islamic leanings" from the Americas, fearing they would spread "radical" ideas and incite revolts among Indigenous populations. In the Virginia colony, a 1682 law automatically deemed "Moors" (Muslims) who were not from Christian countries to be slaves by default.

In Spanish and Portuguese colonies, mass baptisms were often performed upon arrival, frequently without any religious instruction. In British colonies, there was more debate over whether baptism should be allowed, but many enslavers eventually used it as a tool to "civilize" and assimilate enslaved Muslims into a submissive social order.

Islamic practices such as praying five times a day, fasting during Ramadan, or wearing traditional clothing were often suppressed through the threat of severe punishment or death. This erasure was part of a larger strategy to strip enslaved people of their humanity and reduce them to "chattel".

Because many African Muslims were highly literate in Arabic, some enslavers exploited these skills for their own benefit. This is how we know black where all ready here. Enslaved Muslims sometimes worked as bookkeepers or personal servants, using their positions to gain mobility and even earn money for their eventual freedom.

Some enslavers would ask literate Muslims to write out Christian prayers like the "Lord's Prayer" or the 23rd Psalm in Arabic to show off their "converted" slaves to guests. However, archival research shows that many Muslims instead wrote out Quranic verses that condemned slavery or pleaded for their return to Africa, knowing their enslavers could not read the script.

Surat Al-Mulk (Chapter 67): Used by Omar Ibn Said to open his autobiography; it emphasizes that only God has sovereignty over humans, a subtle theological challenge to his enslavers.

Surat Al-Nasr (Chapter 110): Often transcribed when enslavers requested Christian prayers like "The Lord’s Prayer".

The Bilali Muhammad Document: Also known as the "Ben Ali Diary," this 13-page manuscript is considered the first book of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) written in the U.S.. It is a transcription of the Risalah of Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani, a Maliki legal treatise from the 10th century that outlines rules for prayer and ablution by the Mali Empire that, again was already here

In Brazil, Bahamas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands and Panama, enslaved Muslims and West Indies African used Arabic grammar texts and legal works from the West African curriculum to maintain secret schools and communal identity

Enslaved Muslims in the Americas primarily used the Quran and West African legal and theological treatises, often transcribing them from memory. Because owning paper or religious texts was often illegal, many produced their own manuscripts to preserve and transmit their faith.

We want to break down so the history of Islam, Ethiopian Christianity and West Africa history in the Americas that was already here in the Americas before slavery so our followers would understand how native enslavement came after the Mali Empire voyage to the Americas with massive ships over 2000 of them.

Mansa Abu Bakr II (also known as Abubakari II).

According to accounts recorded by the Arab historian Al-Umari, Abu Bakr II abdicated his throne in 1311 to explore the Atlantic Ocean. That journey was embarked with other countries in Africa ( pay attention because this is very important This was even before Christopher Columbus came).

He reportedly launched a massive fleet of 2,000 ships over 1k for men, 2k women and 1,000 for supplies like gold, water, and food.

We know through fact finders that his fleet reached the Americas (specifically Brazil and the Caribbean) nearly 200 years before Columbus. We also know that African-style artifacts and "black warriors" reported in early Spanish journals.

Chemical analysis of gold-tipped spears found by Columbus that matched West African gold. Christopher Columbus said in his journal and we quote " I seen bronze, dark color Indians and I think I'm in India".

He was still convinced he was in the Indies. These records are now frequently cited by scholars like Ivan Van Sertima as evidence that West Africans had established trade routes to the Americas centuries before European arrival.

According to historical records and journals attributed to Christopher Columbus, the Indigenous black people of Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) specifically reported encounters with black-skinned traders who had arrived from the south and southeast that not only spoke their language but told them stories of their beginning on these islands.

The Taíno people, from the Bahamas described seeing " darker black-skinned people" arriving in large boats to trade. That also told them stories of their beginning on this island. The Taino people brought nose rings and were taught how to do piercings. Those piercings led to the discovery that these Maliki people had metal spears with gold tips.

This is a reported in Christopher Columbus journal.Columbus’s immediate response was one of skepticism mixed with strategic investigation, as he was primarily driven by the search for gold to justify his voyages ( precept Christopher Columbus Queen sent him in search but didn't quite tell him she was looking for a specific Empire after capturing Europe from the Islam Moors).

They claimed these traders brought metal-tipped spears made of a specific alloy they called guanín.The Indigenous black people valued guanín for its unique smell and brilliant shine, which they associated with spiritual energy and high social status. We know also that these people set sail with the Mali Empire We mentioned several of these individuals previously but we want to give our followers precepts upon precepts to go study without giving you the full answer.

Now, rather than dismissing the claim entirely, Columbus collected samples of these gold-tipped spears and sent them back to Spain on a mail boat.

Let us take a break and pause right here because I want to explain that the Taino language and how they communicated with Christopher Columbus was by people on his voltage that spoke the same language and was bronze and dark-skinned ,👀.

Royal assayers in Spain analyzed the metal and found it was a specific alloy of 18 parts gold, 6 parts silver, and 8 parts copper. This ratio was identical to the metal being forged in West African Guinea at the time.

Based on these reports and the advice of King John II of Portugal who also claimed Africans had traveled to a world to the south Columbus adjusted his third voyage in 1498 to sail further south and southeast to locate the source of these traders by orders of the Queen.

Beyond the metallurgical evidence of gold-tipped spears, fruit, vegetables and spices, each continent they left behind stone heads as a memorial to them coming to these particular islands ( do your research we're not going to give you the whole answer and where to look).

Olmec Colossal Heads. That was also found in Mexico. Polish professor Andrzej Wiercinski, reported finding "Negroid" skulls at Olmec sites like Tlatilco and Monte Albán. Now These skulls in smaller size heads that was left in Mexico just like in Taino in the other islands mention above.

West African Manding languages and black Indigenous American tongues we're very similar. For example, the Mande word quanin (for gold) is nearly identical to the Caribbean term guanín used for the gold-silver-copper alloy.

Proponents cite parallels in pyramid building, mummification techniques, and calendar systems between Egypt/West Africa and Mesoamerica. And we know Ramse II was mummified in to***co in co***ne a native to the Americas plants.

Despite these efforts, many enslaved managed to maintain their faith in secret for generations, though the inability to build institutions or pass on Arabic literacy meant that Islam largely faded in the US by the mid-19th century.

"Southern Gothic" is a style of art and literature that focuses on the "dark side" of the American South dealing with broken-down settings, family secrets, and the lingering ghosts of slavery. While famous white authors like William Faulkner used it to show the decay of the old South, it has a deep, real-world connection to the Hoodoo and Black church traditions we discussed.

03/28/2026

Do you know.....

Black churches in the US South often have deep, hidden roots in Hoodoo a, West African-derived folk spirituality using it to reframe Christianity as a tool for resistance, healing, and protection.

Enslaved Africans, forbidden from practicing their native traditions, merged West African spiritual beliefs (Odinani, Vodun, Yoruba) with Christianity, creating "Afro-Christianity" or "conjure" practices within plantation churches.

Hoodoo practices were concealed from slaveholders, creating an "invisible institution" where African spiritualities were safely tucked within the structure of Baptist and Methodist churches, secretly.

The Bible itself, particularly the Book of Psalms, is often used in this tradition as a tool for spells, talismans, and protection, rather than only for worship.

The altar is viewed as a place to leave offerings or spiritual items for protection or to petition spirits for assistance, blending with the Christian concept of taking burdens to the Lord.

The use of consecrated oils and water for healing and cleansing often merges Biblical anointing with African spiritual practices of cleansing and purifying.

The ecstatic "shout" and spirit possession found in many black churches are often interpreted as modern adaptations of West African possession rituals.

The practice of waiting for the spirit, which involves spiritual preparation and intense prayer, is seen by some as akin to the ritual preparation of rootwork.
However, "Hoodoo Baptist": A term used to describe those navigating the intersections of Black Southern Baptist Christianity and traditional rootwork.

While many Hoodoo practices were integrated into the "invisible institution" of the early Black church, Hoodoo is generally considered a system of spiritual practice, not a religion pro se, with established churches, unlike the related African American Spiritual Churches which developed later and we see today.

The largest group of enslaved people practiced indigenous religions from West and Central Africa. These included:

Bakongo Religion (Central Africa): Based on a complex animistic system and ancestor veneration, it contributed the "Kongo cosmogram" (a cross symbol) and the "ring shout" to Black spiritual practice.

Yoruba and Vodun (West Africa): Religions from the Fon and Ewe people centered on a supreme creator and numerous spirits or deities (Orishas/Lwa) that act as intermediaries.

Odinani (Igbo People): A pantheistic faith from Nigeria where the creator is worshiped through lesser spirits and ancestors.

Islam: It is estimated that 10% to 30% of enslaved Africans were Muslim. They brought knowledge of the Qur'an, dietary laws, and prayer rituals that were often kept secret.

Animism: Most traditional practices were animistic, believing that all natural objects, places, and creatures possess a distinct spiritual essence.

These beliefs were maintained through a "creative adaptability," where African rhythms, ecstatic dancing, and spirit possession were reframed within a Christian religion context such as "catching the Holy Ghost" to survive under the watch and wrath of enslavers.

03/27/2026

Wallace F. "Wally" Nelson
born March 27, 1909.

An African-American civil rights and peace activist.

Raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, he was the son of Lydia (Durand) and Duncan Nelson. During his youth, Nelson and his family were sharecroppers, which was an experience that shaped some of his values. Nelson was a regional Church youth director and he attended Ohio Wesleyan University. As a committed advocate of active nonviolence, he refused to bear arms during World War II and served in a Civilian Public Service camp, followed by three and a half years in federal prison.

While locked up, he played a major role in ending racial segregation as the authorized policy of the federal prison system. In 1947, he participated in the first in*******al "Freedom Ride," traveling by bus through the Southern states to test the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision banning racial segregation in interstate transportation. One year later, he co-founded Peacemakers, a national organization dedicated to active nonviolence as a way of life and he and his wife, Juanita, began their lifelong practice of refusing to pay taxes used for armaments and killing.

During the early 1950’s, as the first national field organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), he directed numerous workshops on nonviolent direct action in Washington, D.C. In 1968, he fasted for 21 days in support of the United Farm Workers’ campaign for just wages and working conditions for farm laborers. In 1974, he moved to Deerfield (Mass.) where he started an organic vegetable farm. During this time, he and his family were among the founders of the Valley Community Land Trust, Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, and the Greenfield Farmers’ Market.

He was a regular participant in the annual war-tax protest in front of the Greenfield Post Office on Tax Day. Wally Nelson died on May 23, 2002, in Greenfield, Massachusetts at age 93.

03/27/2026

Sarah Lois Vaughan
born March 27, 1924

An American jazz singer, described by music critic Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."

Nicknamed "Sassy", "The Divine One" and "Sailor" (for her salty speech), Sarah Vaughan was a Grammy Award winner. The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its "highest honor in jazz", the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989.

Sarah Vaughan's father, Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, was a carpenter by trade and played guitar and piano. Her mother, Ada Vaughan, was a laundress and sang in the church choir. Jake and Ada Vaughan had migrated to Newark from Virginia during the First World War. Sarah was their only biological child, although in the 1960s they adopted Donna, the child of a woman who traveled on the road with Sarah Vaughan.

The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street, in Newark, New Jersey, for Sarah's entire childhood. Jake Vaughan was deeply religious and the family was very active in the New Mount Zion Baptist Church on 186 Thomas Street. Sarah began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir and occasionally played piano for rehearsals and services.

Vaughan developed an early love for popular music on records and the radio. In the 1930s, Newark had a very active live music scene and Vaughan frequently saw local and touring bands that played in the city at venues like the Montgomery Street Skating Rink. By her mid-teens, Vaughan began venturing (illegally) into Newark's night clubs and performing as a pianist and, occasionally, singer, most notably at the Piccadilly Club and the Newark Airport USO.

Vaughan initially attended Newark's East Side High School, later transferring to Newark Arts High School, which had opened in 1931 as the United States' first arts "magnet" high school. However, her nocturnal adventures as a performer began to overwhelm her academic pursuits and Vaughan dropped out of high school during her junior year to concentrate more fully on music. Around this time, Vaughan and her friends also began venturing across the Hudson River into New York City to hear big bands at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Sarah Vaughan - Stardust
https://youtu.be/fDePdW8aP60

03/27/2026

Marvin Gaye sitting on a porch with his father, Marvin Gaye Sr. , in 1974 during a joint interview.

The footage often evokes a sense of deep irony and sadness for viewers aware of the story's tragic conclusion.

03/27/2026

March 27, 1997 – The family of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called for a new trial of James Earl Ray on this date in 1997.

Ray who was convicted in King’s murder died in prison in 1998.

Ray was an American criminal convicted of the assassination of civil rights and anti-war activist Martin Luther King, Jr.

His conviction was on March 10, 1969, after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial.

He was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and tried unsuccessfully to gain a new trial. He died in prison of hepatitis C.

In 1997, King's son Dexter met with Ray, and publicly supported his efforts to obtain a retrial. Loyd Jowers, a restaurant owner in Memphis, was brought to civil court and sued as being part of a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King.

In a 1993 ABC interview, Jowers claimed he received
from Memphis produce merchant Frank Liberto to facilitate the assassination, alleging a conspiracy involving Memphis police officers rather than a lone gunman.

Jowers was found legally liable, and the King family accepted $100 in restitution, an amount chosen to show that they were not pursuing the case for financial gain.

According to Jowers, Liberto assured him that the police "wouldn't be there" and that the murder would be set up to look like someone else referring to a "lone gunman" had committed the crime.

Another witness, John McFerren, claimed to have overheard Liberto making a suspicious phone call at his produce warehouse on the afternoon of the assassination, during which Liberto allegedly said, "Shoot the son-of-a-bit on the balcony".

Liberto had already died by the time Jowers made his 1993 public confession. His widow subsequently dismissed Jowers' story as false.

While a 1999 civil jury found Jowers and "unknown co-conspirators" (often linked to Liberto in theory) liable for the death, the U.S. Department of Justice later rejected these claims. The DOJ found no credible evidence that Liberto was connected to organized crime or that the conspiracy Jowers described actually existed.

Dr. William Pepper, a friend of King in the last year of his life, represented Ray in a televised mock trial in an attempt to get him the trial he never had.

Pepper later represented the King family in a wrongful death civil trial against Loyd Jowers.

The King family has since concluded that Ray did not have anything to do with the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.

In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14176, mandating the declassification and release of records related to the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy.

The disclosure included over 230,000 pages (more than 6,000 files) of previously classified or un-digitized materials.The files primarily consist of FBI surveillance records (codename: MURKIN), internal memos from the hunt for James Earl Ray, and CIA records deemed responsive to the order.

We have noted that the release contains little new or notable information regarding the assassination itself, as many details had already been in the public domain for decades.

03/27/2026

Around the world and back:

Venture Smith
The son of a prince who was abducted into slavery

Born Broteer Furro in a place he recalls as Dukandarra in a region of West Africa.

According to his narrative, his father, a prince, exercised authority with honor and generosity. His mother was one of several wives. Venture wrote that “I was descended from a very large, tall and stout race of beings, much larger than the generality of people in other parts of the globe.” Legend has it that Venture was well over 6 feet 1 1⁄2 inches (1.87 m) tall, weighed 300 pounds (140 kg), and carried a 9-pound (4.1 kg) axe for felling trees. His family’s world was turned upside down when a marauding army threatened, betrayed, and ultimately overwhelmed his people. Venture witnessed the torturing and murder of his father by the army for refusing to disclose the location of his treasure. As a 10-year-old, he was taken captive and marched about 1,000 miles to the coastal slave-trading center Anomabo (in present-day Ghana).

Venture was sold to Robinson Mumford, an officer on a Rhode Island slaver commanded by a “Captain Collingwood” who purchased him for “four gallons of rum and piece of calico cloth.” The vessel was probably the Charming Susannah, which departed Newport in late 1738 and returned in September 1739. Venture survived the smallpox epidemic that ravaged the ship during the Middle Passage, and while most of the surviving captives were sold in Barbados, he was brought to New England. Mumford decided to call him Venture because he considered purchasing him to be a business venture. Mumford rented Fisher’s Island from members of the Winthrop family and operated the 3,000-acre property as a large, commercial farm, raising mostly sheep and dairy cows. At Mumford’s residence Venture worked in the household but as he grew older, he endured harder tasks and more severe punishments.

At the age of twenty-five, Venture married an enslaved woman named Meg (Margret). Shortly thereafter, on March 27, 1754, he made an escape attempt, convinced to take flight by an Irish indentured servant named Heddy and two others enslaved by Mumford. During their trip, At Montauk Point Long Island Heddy stole their supplies, and Venture went back to enslavement. A newspaper advertisement placed by his enslaver in April 1754 confirms this account and offers the only contemporary physical description of Venture: “he is a very tall Fellow, 6 feet 2 Inches high, thick square Shoulders, Large bon’d, mark’d in the Face, or scar’d with a Knife in his own Country.”

In 1754, Venture and Meg welcomed their daughter Hannah. Less than a month later, Venture was separated from his family when he was sold to Thomas Stanton in Stonington-point, Connecticut. Venture convinced his new enslaver to purchase his wife Meg, but Venture’s relationships with the Stantons were marked by betrayal and violence. At one point around 1760, Venture intervened in a conflict between his wife and Mrs. Stanton. His enslaver retaliated by clubbing him brutally and stealing the money he and Meg had been saving up to purchase their freedom. Venture complained to a local justice of the peace to no avail. Ultimately, Venture was sold to Oliver Smith, a small-scale Stonington merchant, and they reached a deal whereby Venture earned the money to purchase his freedom through various kinds of work, including cutting vast amounts of cordwood.

Venture and Meg had two more children, Solomon in 1756 and Cuff in 1761. After purchasing his freedom for 71 pounds and two shillings, Venture took Smith’s last name for himself and his family, in honor of the one enslaver who did not betray or cheat him.

Venture spent his first years as a free man living and working in Long Island, New York, with the hope of purchasing his family’s freedom. Thomas Stanton still had Meg and their two sons, and a member of Mumford family had their eldest child, Hannah. He earned money by cutting wood, fishing, and even going on a whaling voyage. Over a six year period, he purchased his two sons, his pregnant wife, and his daughter Hannah from slavery. Solomon, the eldest son, died aboard a whaling ship, and the new baby was named Solomon Jr., in memory of his deceased brother. Cuff, the middle son, enlisted in the Continental army when he was in his early twenties. After the war, he returned to his family in East Haddam Neck, Connecticut.

Venture also invested in land. In 1770, he bought a 26-acre parcel that bordered the farm of his former enslaver Thomas Stanton. (That area is now the Barn Island Wildlife Preserve.) In 1775, he used proceeds from the sale of this land to purchase a small piece of land on Haddam Neck, Connecticut, where he cut lumber. Within a few years, his land in Haddam Neck grew to over 100 acres. There, he pursued a variety of entrepreneurial activities–farming, lumbering, fishing, and working as a small-scale trader along the Connecticut River and the east end of Long Island Sound. He made a living by fishing, whaling, farming his land, and trading in the Long Island basin.

In his latter years, Venture suffered from blindness and ill health. In 1798, he related a narrative of his life to a local schoolteacher, and with his family had it printed by The Bee, in New London, CT. This book was unique because it was the only historical narrative about an enslaved life at the time to describe a childhood in Africa.

Venture Smith died on September 19, 1805, at the age of seventy-seven. He is buried at the First Church of Christ cemetery in East Haddam, Connecticut, now a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. Alongside him are buried his wife Meg, who died several years later, and other members of their family. Venture’s gravestone, which can be seen there to this day, was carved by John Isham, a well-known carver in the region. It describes him as “Venture Smith, African. Tho the son of a King he was kidnapped and sold as a slave but by his industry he acquired Money to Purchase his Freedom.” Since then, he has been widely remembered in the region for his industry, integrity, and successes.

Venture is referenced in the 1971 film Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, by the title character, who makes a gravestone rubbing of Smith’s headstone, and later reads it to her husband.

The Life of Venture Smith
PBS Learning Media
https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/adlit08.ush.col.smith/the-life-of-venture-smith