On November 18th, 1863, Daniel Stanley Lathrop enlisted with the 29th Connecticut Colored Regiment. You may have seen his picture... it's engraved into the stone at the 29th Connecticut Colored Regiment monument in New Haven

In the late 1700’s, a Native American was enslaved by an English colonist in Simsbury, CT. Considered unsatisfactory as a servant, his enslaver did what was considered the common solution for ridding the community of "Undesirable Indians." They intoxicated him, then sent him to the West Indies (Cuba, Jamaica, or Bermuda) in exchange for an African. That African they received in exchange was Peter Jackson.

Richard Myers Hedgman decided it was time to escape his enslaver, Jesse Peters. So, he began a 20 mile trek towards the Potomac River, crossing the river into Indian Head, Maryland, a border state. From there, he headed for Yorktown, VA... now Union controlled. In Yorktown, he boarded a Union Hospital Ship headed for New York with 20 other Black men. He would live and work as a free man in New York, yet fearful that his enslaver might one day find him.

Hagar was emancipated on the death of James Rogers in 1688. In 1709, 21 years after being freed, Hagar's former master's son (James Jr.) attempted to force her and her children back into slavery, telling the courts they were property of his fathers estate.

In 1843, a child named George Washington was born into slavery on a plantation in Mississippi. George had 3 brothers, all forced to fight with the Confederacy during the Civil War. George joined many slaves that raced towards Union lines in search of freedom, traveling to Connecticut in search of work.

Grace Robinson worked and lived in south Georgia, then in Roswell as the property of James and Martha Bulloch, the grandparents of Theodore Roosevelt.

Much is known about Maryland's most famous Civil War veteran and former enslaved (Harriet Tubman), but only those in my family know of a skinny 23 year old from Baltimore named William Cooper who enlisted in the Union Navy on February 9th, 1864.

The Connecticut State Library has a page that lists all people who enlisted in the Connecticut 29th Colored Regiment, the Connecticut 30th Colored Regiment, and the New York 31st Colored Regiment.

The youngest of 7 kids, Nicholas was born in Maryland in 1843; a mulatto child, possibly the product of his Mother and her enslaver. Listed as having mental limitations, he would leave home for New York in 1864 to join the Union’s 31st Colored Infantry Regiment; a regiment that fought at the Battle of Petersburg...the battle that forced General Robert E. Lee to surrender which essentially ended the Civil War. He is buried in Wethersfield, CT.

One day, sometime around the year 1830, on a plantation in Georgia, a male child was born into the physical and mental confines of slavery; he was given the name Ned. From the earliest days of his life, Ned surely witnessed the cruelty and hardships endured by those held as property.

Richard (Dick) Freeman was a Waterbury, CT enslaved man in the 18th century. He’s referenced in the 1858 book by Henry Bronson entitled “The History of Waterbury.” Born in the 1740’s, he often talked about being taken captive while he was a child “on the shores of Africa” while playing in the sand.

In the 18th century, Amos Thompson traveled to Virginia, bringing a wife and those she enslaved back to Connecticut. One of those enslaved (Fanny) would marry one of the other enslaved (Jupiter) having kids; one born in 1790 named James. Fanny told her kids of the atrocities of slavery in the south, often seeing her mother tied and whipped until blood ran across the floor.

In 1736, Broteer Furro was the 7 year old son of a prince in Guinea. After watching his father murdered by trappers, he was taken with 259 other Africans to a ship. On board, Broteer was purchased by the ships steward for 4 gallons of rum and a piece of cloth; he was renamed “Venture.“

127 years before Federal Marshals escorted Ruby Bridges to school; before the Little Rock 9 walked amongst screaming White Americans, there was a young Black girl named Sarah Harris.

Benjamin Grymes, a White Planter in Georgia, had his way with an enslaved woman who bore a child named William. In 1815, William stowed away in bales of cotton on a boat headed to New York. Narrowly escaping identification, he walked 80 miles to New Haven.

Ancestors of former Hartford Mayor Thurman Milner (1981 - 1987), Jack and Sophia were enslaved from birth…both promised freedom later in life, but that freedom was rescinded.