Welcome to Historic Northampton
Exhibition Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12 noon to 4 pm
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Upcoming Events |
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Slavery and Freedom in Northampton and in the Colonial North Lecture Series: Lecture 4
Living and Laboring in the Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 7 pm
On Zoom
On Zoom
Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara will speak via Zoom on April 10, 2025. Clark-Pujara is professor of history in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island (NYU Press, 2016).
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The Business of slavery—specifically the buying and selling of people, food, and goods—shaped the experience of slavery, the process of emancipation, and the realities of Black freedom in Rhode Island from the colonial period through the American Civil War. In the colonial period, Rhode Islanders dominated the American trade in African slaves and provided the slave-labor-dependent West Indies with basic necessities. In the post-colonial period, as slavery was legally dismantled, Rhode Islanders became the leading producers of slave clothing. Black people resisted their bondage, fought for their freedom, and strove to build a community in a racially hostile colony and state; their assertions of humanity shaped Rhode Island society, politics, and economy. The erasure of this history has allowed for a dangerous myth—that the North has no history of racism to overcome and that white northerners had no substantive investments in race-based slavery.
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In Partnership with the Northampton Reparations Study Commission
A Light Under the Dome: A Staged, Dramatic Reading
A play by Patrick Gabridge, Producing Artistic Director, Plays in Place
A play by Patrick Gabridge, Producing Artistic Director, Plays in Place
Wednesday, April 2, 2025 or Thursday, April 3, 2025 | 6:30 pm
Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence, 220 Main Street, Northampton, MA
Historic Northampton, in collaboration with Plays In Place and in partnership with the Racial Justice Team of the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence, proudly presents two staged, dramatic readings of A Light Under the Dome.
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On February 21, 1838, exiled Southerner Angelina Grimke became the first American woman to address a legislative body when she delivered a speech about abolition and the full citizenship of American women at the Massachusetts State House.
A Light Under the Dome brings us to this moment in history, showcasing Grimke and taking us inside the minds and hearts of four abolitionist and suffragist leaders--Maria Weston Chapman, Susan Paul, Julia Williams, and Lydia Maria Child, who in 1838 was living in Northampton. As Grimke readies herself for this moment, her four friends help support and guide her through this pressure-packed moment. A few years later, Grimke would give a similar speech here in Northampton. Each hour-long performance will be followed by a post-show discussion with the playwright and a historian. |
Sophia Smith — Hatfield, Northampton, and the Founding of Smith College
A Presentation by Laurie Sanders, co-director of Historic Northampton
First Congregational Church, 41 Main Street, Hatfield, MA
Co-sponsored by the Hatfield Historical Society
Co-sponsored by the Hatfield Historical Society
Wednesday, April 16, 2025 at 6 pm
Sophia Smith, 1858
Smith College Special Collections |
In April 1870, Sophia Smith, a lifelong resident of Hatfield, executed her will, ensuring that her future namesake college would be located in Northampton–not in Hatfield as she had initially envisioned. To mark the 150 year anniversary of this event, on Wednesday, April 16, the Hatfield Historical Society and Historic Northampton are collaborating:
Reserve your place. Walk-ins allowed. Sliding scale: $5-20. All contributions jointly benefit the Hatfield Historical Society and Historic Northampton. Learn More |
Acknowledging Indigenous history
Acknowledging Indigenous History
Here, we acknowledge that we stand on Indigenous land, inhabited by Native American people for roughly 11,000 years, since the glaciers receded. This place that we now call Northampton was known to Native people as Nonotuck or Norwottuck. Nonotuck homelands stretched across both sides of the Kwinitekw (now called the Connecticut River), including the present-day towns of Amherst, Hadley, Hatfield, South Hadley, Northampton, and Easthampton.
Nonotuck people were closely connected, through trade, diplomacy, and kinship, to other Native communities in the region: the Quaboag in present-day Brookfield; the Agawam in present-day Springfield; the Woronoco in present-day Westfield; the Pocumtuck in present-day Deerfield; and the Sokoki in present-day Northfield. During the early 1600s, these Native groups engaged in reciprocal trade relations with English colonial settlers and with other Native nations. By the late 1600s, however, the pressures of colonial warfare forced many Native families to relocate, taking shelter in other Native territories. We offer condolences for the Nonotuck people who were forced to leave their homeland, while also offering gratitude for the Native communities that took them in.
Despite the loss of land due to colonial settlement, a number of Native nations have persisted across the territory that we now call “New England.” These include: the Nipmuc to the East; the Wampanoag and Narragansett to the Southeast; the Mohegan, Pequot, and Schaghticoke to the South; the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican to the West; and the Abenaki to the North, among others. Recognizing that the entirety of the North American continent constitutes Indigenous homelands, we affirm, honor, and respect the sovereignty of these and hundreds of other Indigenous Native American and First Nations peoples who survive today.
Learn More
Nonotuck people were closely connected, through trade, diplomacy, and kinship, to other Native communities in the region: the Quaboag in present-day Brookfield; the Agawam in present-day Springfield; the Woronoco in present-day Westfield; the Pocumtuck in present-day Deerfield; and the Sokoki in present-day Northfield. During the early 1600s, these Native groups engaged in reciprocal trade relations with English colonial settlers and with other Native nations. By the late 1600s, however, the pressures of colonial warfare forced many Native families to relocate, taking shelter in other Native territories. We offer condolences for the Nonotuck people who were forced to leave their homeland, while also offering gratitude for the Native communities that took them in.
Despite the loss of land due to colonial settlement, a number of Native nations have persisted across the territory that we now call “New England.” These include: the Nipmuc to the East; the Wampanoag and Narragansett to the Southeast; the Mohegan, Pequot, and Schaghticoke to the South; the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican to the West; and the Abenaki to the North, among others. Recognizing that the entirety of the North American continent constitutes Indigenous homelands, we affirm, honor, and respect the sovereignty of these and hundreds of other Indigenous Native American and First Nations peoples who survive today.
Learn More
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