My Book is Open for Pre-Order on Amazon!

Memorial
Written By John Mills

I HAVE A NEW BOOK!

My book is entitled, The Narrative of Primus. It uncovers the remarkable, nearly forgotten story of a ten-year-old boy taken from his mother's bedside in West Africa and forced aboard a slave ship bound for America. That boy, Primus, survived the Middle Passage, endured decades of enslavement in colonial Connecticut, raised a family, and-through faith, resilience, and grace, laid a foundation that would ripple across generations.

Drawing on rarely cited historical sources including an embedded first-person narrative hidden since 1824 in the writings of Lydia Sigourney, I attempt to reveal Primus as more than a footnote to slavery or a name in a ledger. My hope was to restore him as a father, a church member, a scholar of scripture, a community figure, and a man whose voice still echoes across three centuries.

The book presents my journey in learning about Primus, detailing archival research tracing the lives of Primus's descendants; from the Revolutionary War, where his son Job fought for American independence while enslaved, through the Civil War, where his 2nd Great Grandson Sgt. Daniel Stanley Lathrop served with the famed 29th Connecticut Colored Infantry Regiment, and into the twentieth century where the lineage continued to serve in both World Wars and National Guard militias shut out of state support.

Part genealogy, part social history, and part personal journey, my book blends historical storytelling with my lived experience as a Black American and direct descendant of enslaved ancestors. The book interrogates myths surrounding American liberty, challenges long-held racial narratives, and re-centers Black families whose sacrifices helped shape the nation.

My hope was to have the book released in time to contribute to this years America 250 celebrations. It was a lot of work, but we made it! The book will be officially released on April 21, but you can pre-order now on Amazon HERE. Pre-orders have already caused the book to have an Amazon ranking of #12 in American Revolution Biographies and #19 in African American History books!!!

Please consider helping me keep the momentum going by pre-ordering. Thank you all for your continued support!

God Bless.

John


John Mills

Originally from San Diego, John Mills is a technologist by trade, but an equity advocate and independent scholar by passion. The descendant of both southern and northern enslaved, John focuses on unearthing little known people and stories of this country’s history in slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. John presents research through the lens and perspective of a descendant, with intent to inspire understanding and empathy, a means to inspire good, God fearing people, now armed with information, to look into whether they may be unwittingly aligning to biases resulting from the reverberating effects of a past time. John is a member of the Connecticut Freedom Trail and a member of the Webb Deane Stevens Museum Council. John is also working with an international team funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in an effort to deliver transformational impact on digital methods in cultural institutions...a means to decolonize museums. Finally, John is working with the state of Connecticut, business leaders and scholars in Middletown, CT to honor and memorialize a former enslaved individual by the name of Prince Mortimer.

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