Newport Mayor Harry Winthrop and Victoria Johnson, chairwoman of the Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Committee, unveiled a sign at the future site of the Newport Slave Trade Memorial in Liberty Square, Farewell and Marlborough streets.
Mayor Harry Winthrop and Victoria Johnson of Newport Middle Passage Project. At left are City Council members Lynne Underwood Ceglie, Susan Taylor and Marco Camacho. At right are Project members Benedict Leca, Patricia Petit and Peter Fay.
At left are City Council members Lynne Underwood Ceglie, Susan Taylor and Marco Camacho. The planned historical monument will honor and memorialize Africans who lost their lives on slave ships as well as the survivors and their descendants. The local project is part of a national effort to research and identify all 48 port sites in the present United States that were ports of entry for Africans during the 300-plus years of the trans-Atlantic human trade. Local communities have been encouraged to hold remembrance ceremonies at each port and place some type of marker. City officials, community leaders, committee members and many others gathered Thursday to commemorate the future site of the Newport Slave Trade Memorial in Liberty Square.
“The Backstory of the Black Regiment: Soldiers’ Ties to Community and Kin”
Lecture by Peter Fay, Patriots Park Commemoration by NAACP
Patriots Park, Portsmouth, RI,
August 27, 2023, 3 pm
Philo Phillips of North Kingstown was 27 when his owner sold him into the state’s Black Regiment during the Revolutionary War. Now a soldier, he marched and fought for his life and freedom. However, like many soldiers, he was not alone. His wife accompanied him throughout the war as a “camp follower”, furnishing food, laundry, and nursing. She also earned income as a washerwoman for other soldiers. A year later, she learned her husband was captured by the British troops during a skirmish and was held captive in Newport. Six months later he escaped back to the regiment where his wife remained. At the end of the war, after five long years of service, Philo Phillips was honorably discharged.
After the war, he was impoverished, and his wife was blind. He sought and found help from the Black community, and years later the Providence Gazette commemorated the death of this “respectable man of color” at age 75.
Soldiers’ lives depended on their comrades in battle. But Mr. Fay will uncover the stories of women and others whose support was crucial to the Black Regiment’s success during the privations of war and its aftermath.
For centuries, Rhode Island sent its young men to sea. As agriculture and slavery slowly declined, hundreds left the rural towns, many of them formerly enslaved African American and Indigenous men. They sought out opportunities in shipping and whaling as cooks, first mates, oarsmen, and boatsteerers. They crossed the bay, the Atlantic, and the world in pursuit of a livelihood that had eluded them at home. What they found were South Sea islands, arctic icescapes, wondrous sea creatures, warring tribes, hardship, and occasionally, opportunities for stunning achievement.
Peter Fay is a public historian and board member of the Jamestown Historical Society. He researches, writes, and lectures about Rhode Island history. He also is currently helping develop a public memorial to recognize the role of Newport in the history of the slave trade.
In this third online event of the Newport Middle Passage Summer 2021 Series, the Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project presents Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes in an online event for the general public in collaboration with the Redwood Library and Atheneum of Newport on Wed., July 21, 2021, at 6 pm.
In this presentation, Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes will discuss how the dynamics underlying the gendered/raced/sexual relationships created under colonialism manifest themselves today. She will also explore how the perspectives of different eras of Black feminism, human rights, and sexual health add to the conversation.
Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes is the Senior Curator of Maritime Social Histories at Mystic Seaport Museum and is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. She is responsible for working on curatorial projects of race, Indigenous histories, ethnicity, and diversity in New England’s Maritime activities. She leads a multi-disciplinary team to examine Mystic Seaport Museum’s and other regional collections to develop contemporary re-imaginings of people’s actions in the past and present and translating that into content relevant to today’s social environment. Akeia received her BA in anthropology/archaeology at Salve Regina University and her MA and PhD in anthropology/archaeology at the University of Connecticut.
Next in the NMPPMP Summer 2021 Series will be two exceptional women who are engaged in creating and writing outstanding poetry on Wed., July 7 at 6 PM. Presented in partnership with the Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project, poets Afia Ansong and Jacqueline Johnson will share their poetry and discuss their creative process. Through their work, they help us to question and explore themes of identity, transition, and belonging. The event is hosted online by the Redwood Library and Athenaeum.
Afia Ansong
Afia Ansong is a Ghanain American scholar and artist who writes poetry and teaches contemporary and traditional West African dance, she writes about the challenges of the African immigrant identity in the United States, exploring themes of transition, citizenship, and identity.
She is a 2015 and 2018 recipient of the Bronx Recognizes its Own Award Her work can be seen or is forthcoming in FOLIO, TAB, The Seventh Wave, PUBLIC POOL, Vinyl, Main Review, joINT, Frontier, and others.
Jacqueline Johnson
Jacqueline Johnson is a multi-disciplinary artist creating poetry, fiction, and fiber arts, and is the winner of the Third Annual White Pine Press Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in: “Show Us Your Papers,” on Main Street Rag Press, 2020, “Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era,” Routledge 2020, “About Place Journal”, the “Langston Hughes Review,” and The Slow Down, American Public Media, October 16, 2019. She is currently writing a novel, The Privilege of Memory, and How to Stop a Hurricane, a collection of short stories. She is a graduate of New York University and the City University of New York. A native of Philadelphia, PA., she resides in Brooklyn, New York.
The Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project is a local nonprofit organization whose goal is to bring to light the full rich scope of Aquidneck Island’s history. We plan to place a memorial in Liberty Square to commemorate the lives of Africans brought to our shores through the Middle Passage and to honor their descendants who have contributed much to the growth of our city, our state, and our country.
Ernest Gibbons, Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project (photo Courtesy Newport Daily News)
A Letter to the Rhode Island Community by Ernest B. Gibbons, Jr. of the Media Committee, NMPPMP:
If Not Now, When? If Not Here, Where?
The answers to those two questions were the genesis of The Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project conceived and created by like-minded residents of Aquidneck Island. Its mission has been to “remember, honor and commemorate the contributions of those Africans who perished in the Middle Passage journey and acknowledge those survivors who helped to build Newport and the Nation, both economically and culturally.”
Our country is still fraught with the difficult legacy of slavery. In 2018, a City Council resolution authorized the Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project to build a memorial park, Liberty Square. Liberty Square posts a sign commemorating this site and states the following :
The Newport Slave Trade Memorial – Future Site Recognizing the Historic role of Newport In The Slave Trade Remembering the Contributions And Legacies Newport Middle Passage Port Marker With Support from The City of Newport
NMPPMP is a diverse alliance of people from different backgrounds who love Newport and wish to engage and educate our community on the impact Africans and African Americans made in our City. The organization has in the last four years organized and established events in the form of lecture series, power points and videos to order to inform the public of the history as well as a recognition of the many contributions Africans and African Americans have made in the development of this city and this nation.
A memorial in Liberty Square will promote acknowledgement of the past and, without question, will inform and enlighten the public with a visible memory. Future generations will not have to ask as many questions.
The Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project, in alliance with local organizations has promoted and hosted a number of on-going series of educational assemblies with speakers who discuss the history and the impact of slavery in our area and the nation.
For example, we have hosted lectures entitled A Rhode Island Diaspora: The Breadth and Depth of Rhode Island Slavery; African American Travel—Green Book Listings in Newport; and WW I African American Servicemen from Newport. In addition, we have held exhibits of African sculpture, film showings, and presentations on Marronage communities.
This year, a power point lecture was presented to the Portsmouth community by Victoria Johnson, sponsored by the American Association of University Women, depicting an imagined story of a young boy, Scipio, who was captured from his village, and then crossed the Middle Passage to arrive in Newport to be sold. (What did he see?) This same lecture was also shared with students of the Newport Community College of Rhode Island and The Met School.
The Coronavirus has definitely put a damper on meeting in groups to present information vital to our project. Unfortunately, future community meetings have been delayed due to the importance of adhering to the present Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) precautions and the Nation’s fight to combat this virus. We, the Middle Passage Port Marker Organization, will continue to honor and respect the challenge of this outbreak. In Newport County, we are One in our endeavor to conquer this threat. Going forward, we are going to have Zoom lectures in order to continue to communicate informative material presented historians and knowledgeable orators. Our first Zoom lecture was presented by Marjory O’Toole, author of “If Jane Should Want to Be Sold.”
We have hired an architect to craft a world class memorial in Newport. Mr. Julian Bonder designed the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in Nantes, France, a national park that examines the 18th century slave trade to modern-day trafficking for sex and labor. Presently, Mr. Bonder is Professor at the School of Architecture, Art and Historic Preservation (SAAHP) and heads the Graduate Architecture Student Design Studio at Roger Williams University, Bristol RI. In February, we held a stakeholder meeting at the Redwood Library where Mr. Bonder revealed a Feasibility Study. He discussed his plan to bring drawings, physical models, and basic massing studies to the community.
Later this year, we wish to involve the community by holding gatherings to give their opinions and input in the design process.
In furtherance of those goals, the Committee has taken steps to further its goals including:
Been designated as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization;
Developed and held outreach programs including exhibitions, lectures and activities with local public schools, universities and churches
Received grants from State and local foundations
Conducted a direct-mail campaign targeting family and friend resources
Received unanimous approval of the Newport City Council to build a memorial at Liberty Square (corner of Marlborough and Farewell Streets)
Listed as a slave port in national, state and local records
Applied and accepted by UNESCO (United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as a “Slave Route” venue, an added honor recognition for our “City By The Sea.”
This above outline of our efforts and successes will enable us to convey our message to our community. With your help, we will leave our mark for generations.
Get your free ticket to attend an online discussion of a shared history of slavery by Marjory Gomez O’Toole of the Little Compton Historical Society. She is author of, “If Jane Should Want to be Sold: Stories of Enslavement, Indenture and Freedom in Little Compton, Rhode Island”.
In 1746, Thomas Church in his last will and testament allowed the sale of his slave, “if my Negro woman Jane after my decease should want to be sold.” Many lives intertwined between the Newport slave trade, and the people of color in both Newport and Little Compton. Ms. O’Toole will explore the various lives and stories of those involved.
Sponsored by the Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project.
Abial Cook rents his enslaved men Aaron & Moses to Captain Thomas Lathrop for a whaling voyage, 1773. Renting of enslaved labor that was not otherwise productively engaged for a period was common in Rhode Island. [Courtesy Little Compton Historical Society]
Ms. O’Toole will share the stories of Hannah, Jane, Sampson Shaw, Henry Manton, Moselle Gray and other local people of color impacted by New England’s 200-year-long practice of slavery, forced indenture and partial freedom. The stories will illuminate the strong ties between Little Compton and Newport and focus on the very personal nature of bondage in the North. Ms. O’Toole’s research has focused on primary source documents and has returned the voices of 200 enslaved people of Native American and African American descent to the area’s local history.
Jane, an imagined portrait by Dora Atwater Millikin, 2016
Little Compton had many connections to Newport and even to the slave south. Willard Gray of Little Compton inherited slaves from Arnold Gray of North Carolina upon Arnold’s death. However, Willard freed one slave, Moselle Gray, who was brought north to live with the white family in their home. She attended school in Little Compton, and eventually moved to Newport. Moselle’s descendants in Newport, the Masseys, have provided oral histories of their ancestor, and photos of her as a child.
Moselle Gray, born c. 1860, was enslaved in the South, freed and brought North to Little Compton, and lived her adult life in Newport. Learn how Moselle navigated life as the only black girl in Little Compton and how her large Newport-based family honors her memory today. [Courtesy Marjorie O’Toole]
The Newport Daily News described Ms. O’Toole’s research into the history of unfree people of Rhode Island:
“One of the stories that affected O’Toole the most, however, was the experience of a nameless slave in Westport, Massachusetts, whose Quaker mistress had him stripped, hung by his hands, and beaten to death. While there were laws regulating treatment of slaves, these were widely ignored. The woman was reprimanded by her Quaker congregation; but on expressing repentance for her actions a year later, she was received back into the church.
“O’Toole has found that there was historically a deliberate effort to soften this distasteful aspect of New England’s past, beginning with northern slaveholders themselves, who even in their own day attempted to ‘downplay the negative aspects of slavery’ by portraying slaveholders as generous and kind and slaves as satisfied with their lot.”
Marjory Gomez O’Toole, MA Public Humanities, Brown University, has been the Executive Director of the Little Compton Historical Society for 15 years and is the author of “If Jane Should Want to Be Sold: Stories of Enslavement, Indenture, and Freedom in Little Compton, Rhode Island.”
Catherine Zipf sponsored by Newport Middle Passage
Catherine Zipf described to a rapt audience of over seventy her research into the dozen or so “Tourist Homes” advertised in the “Negro Green Book” of the mid-1900’s. The presentation was sponsored by Newport Middle Passage as part of it’s summer lecture series.
Particularly after World War II, during the “Great Migration,” when many black Americans sought work in northern states, Newport’s torpedo station provided many government-related jobs. Many relied on guides like the “Green Book” to find services from lodging to beauty salons as they visited or migrated.
26 Brinley Street – From Negro GreenBook, 1913.
The property at 26 Brinley St., advertised as the Glover Hotel by Thomas Glover and his wife Susan from 1913-1931 and again from 1938-1939. In its earliest years, this was the only hotel in Newport aside from the Biltmore, and the only one accommodating African-Americans. Later up to eight “Tourist Homes” were advertised to those seeking non-segregated accommodations.
1938 Negro Motorist Green Book (Courtesy New York Public Library)
The rare original copies of the Negro Motorist Green Book have been digitized and made available to the public at the New York Public Library website. The 1938 edition lists “Glover, Brindley & Center Sts.” as the only entry in Newport. The building at this address can also be seen in the Sanborn Map of 1921, which has been digitized by Brown University. The owner is listed as “T. Glover”.
26 Brinley St – Sanborn Map of 1921 (Courtesy of Brown University)
