history of slavery in Connecticut
The history of slavery in Connecticut is the focus of a new website being launched by The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition (GLC) at Yale.
The site, "Citizens All: African Americans in Connecticut, 1700-1860" (www.yale.edu/glc/citizens), will debut on June 15 in conjunction with the annual meeting of the UNESCO Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project, which will convene at Yale.
The GLC -- part of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale -- developed the site in collaboration with the Yale Center for Media and Instructional Innovation (CMI2).
Created as a teaching tool, the project provides a scholarly introduction to the history of slavery in Connecticut, the process of gradual emancipation and the struggle for citizenship rights by free blacks and abolitionists both within and beyond the state's boundaries. The project aims to illustrate the importance of local history in creating -- as well as challenging -- national and global historical narratives.
"Local history matters because a larger history of the nation and of the world has to begin somewhere," says David Blight, GLC director, the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and a leading scholar of slavery and its legacy in America.
"It has to begin with individual stories, with family stories, with local stories," he adds. "'Citizens All' illustrates the extent of connections to broader, more global issues that often have roots intertwined with our local hometown stories. We hope that the project will stimulate new explorations and discoveries about the legacy of slavery and racism at the local, regional, national and international levels."
Divided into a series of "modules" (Slavery, Freedom, Reaction, Education, Finding Histories), "Citizens All" concentrates on significant 18th- and 19th-century Connecticut historical figures, events and locations that make it clear that slavery was not merely an isolated Southern phenomenon but a lucrative national and global system.
Yale developed the "Citizens All" website as a leader in the United States partnership of the UNESCO Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project, which promotes collaboration among select colleges and universities and regional school districts from states in the Northeast, Midwest and South. The U.S. partnership advances teaching approaches, methods and materials relevant to the transatlantic slave trade and its legacy.
The GLC promotes understanding of slavery and its role in the development of the modern world. While its primary focus has been on scholarly research, the center also strives to bridge the divide between the scholarly community and the wider public. To this end, GLC fosters combined efforts by local, statewide, national and international institutions, such as secondary schools, museums, parks and historical societies, to promote public education about slavery, its global impact and its destruction.
For more information on GLC, visit www.yale.edu/glc.
CMI2 develops leading-edge media and courseware for teaching and learning at Yale. Its mission is to promote innovative and effective uses of technology and new media to enhance learning, both on campus and outside of Yale. To learn more about CMI2, visit http://cmi2.yale.edu.
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