Historic Northampton's exhibit gallery
will be closed for the winter season from January 1 - February 28, 2025
will be closed for the winter season from January 1 - February 28, 2025
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Upcoming Events
Slavery and Freedom in Northampton and in the Colonial North:
A Four-Part Lecture Series
A Four-Part Lecture Series
In Partnership with the Northampton Reparations Study Commission
Slavery and Freedom in Northampton
with Dylan Gaffney, Dr. Elizabeth Sharpe, and Dr. Ousmane Power-Greene
Thursday, January 16, 2024 at 7 pm
On Zoom
On Zoom
Graphic Silhouette of Hannah, her baby, and Mingo (Design Division, 2025)
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For the last five years researchers at Historic Northampton and Forbes Library have been uncovering stories of slavery and freedom in Northampton. These investigations have revealed that perhaps as many as fifty enslaved people lived in Northampton between 1654, when Northampton was settled by the English, until 1783, when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts.
As elsewhere in the North, slavery in Northampton was inextricably linked to local commerce, local and regional family networks, and the global economy. Among the narratives of Northampton’s enslaved people—who were Indigenous, African, and African American—are stories of a few individuals who were able to take control over their lives, gain freedom, start families, manage careers, and acquire property. Presenters Dylan Gaffney, Elizabeth Sharpe, and Ousmane Power-Greene will discuss what we presently know about enslaved lives in Northampton and conclude with questions that remain unanswered and avenues for future research. |
Upcoming Lecturers
More information and registration will be forthcoming
More information and registration will be forthcoming
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Tuesday, February 18, 2025
on Zoom at 7 pm Dr. Jennifer DeClue |
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
on Zoom at 7 pm Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson |
Thursday, April 10, 2025
on Zoom at 7 pm Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara |
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Dr. Jennifer DeClue is Associate Professor in The Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College. She is a queer studies scholar who specializes in Black feminism, gender and chattel slavery, queer of color critique, film studies, popular culture, and the avant-garde. As a fellow of the Slavery North Initiative, she is currently writing a book titled, Enslaved in New England: Black Women and the Afterlife of Northern Bondage.
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Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson is a Provost Professor of Art History at University of Massachusetts Amherst and the founding Director of the Slavery North Initiative which supports research and research creation on the study of Canadian Slavery and slavery in the American North. She founded the Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery, the first-ever research center focused on the overlooked 200-year history of Canadian participation in Transatlantic Slavery.
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Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara is professor of history in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her first book Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island (NYU Press, 2016), examines how the business of slavery 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.
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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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