A Vanished Port: Middletown & the Caribbean, 1750-1824

This exhibition portrays a major New England port during the heyday of the West Indies trade, from the luxurious life of Middletown’s merchants to the suffering of enslaved workers in the sugar monoculture of the English Caribbean. Using the documents and possessions of Middletown merchants and mariners, two stories are told–of New England maritime opportunity, and its basis in a Caribbean economy dependent on the labor of enslaved people. We use local history to talk about the roots of past and present social issues, bringing these stories together through the lives of individuals who lived them.

The exhibit is located on the first floor of the Society’s headquarters, the General Mansfield House. Artifacts and documents help tell the stories of enslavement, wealth and commerce in 18th and early 19th century Middletown.

exhibit-planjThis short film (11:55 minutes) by Erik Hesselberg and Lee T. McQuillan introduces the people and issues explored in the exhibit.

The Making of “A Vanished Port”
A short video (3:56 minutes) by Connecticut Humanities.

Articles about A Vanished Port

Beals, Shawn R. Exhibit Explores Slavery’s Ties to Middletown Commerce in 1700s, 1800s. Hartford Courant, September 5, 2016. http://cour.at/2d4cB3k

Cavalone. Photos: A Vanished Port: Middletown and the Caribbean, 1750-1824 at the Middlesex County Historical Society. Middletown Press, September 7, 2016.  http://bit.ly/2dmJTx1

Hesselberg, Erik. Vanished Port: Middletown and the Great Era of Caribbean Trade. Wesleyan Magazine, January 2011. http://bit.ly/2dlTR0T

Poisson, Cloe (photographer). Photo gallery of A Vanished Port: Middletown & the Caribbean, 1750-1824. Hartford Courant, August 2016.  http://cour.at/2cG5AFp

Weinstein, Willis. A Vanished Port Showcases Middletown’s Dark Past. Wesleyan Argus, September 29, 2016. http://wesleyanargus.com/2016/09/29/a-vanished-port-showcases-middletowns-dark-past/

Whipple, Scott. Middletown Historical Society’s New Show Explores City’s Lost Maritime Past. Middletown Press, September 8, 2016. http://bit.ly/2cxjwPM

In January of 1757, 18-year-old Dudley Saltonstall boarded the Africa in New London. Saltonstall was charged by his father, the ship’s owner, with keeping a log of its voyage to the coast of Sierra Leone.  The Africa was commanded by John Easton, a resident of Middletown.

Once there, Saltonstall transferred to the sloop Good Hope, commanded by Alexander Urqhart, carrying enslaved people to the island of St. Kitts in the Caribbean.

The next year Saltonstall recorded his voyage aboard the Fox, another ship involved in the ‘triangle trade’ between New England, Africa, and the Caribbean.

These logs are contained in a book now at the Connecticut State Library. Many thanks to the Library and to Christine Pittsley who digitized the pages of the logbook for this exhibit.

This short video (3:45 minutes) outlines the 1757 voyages of the Africa and the Good Hope, as described in Saltonstall’s log.

A Vanished Port exhibit is open and available for viewing at the Middlesex County Historical Society at the General Mansfield House at 151 Main Street, Middletown, Connecticut. This award-winning exhibit opened on September 10, 2016 and is now ongoing.

The opening events included:

Wednesday, October 19, 2016, 7-8:30pm: Exhibit Speaker Series starts with a talk by Dr. Joseph R. Avitable, lecturer in American History at Albertus Magnus College and Quinnipiac University, on the profitable and lethal trade in horses between Connecticut and the English Caribbean islands in the period before the American Revolution.  The talk will take place in the Hubbard Room at Russell Library, 123 Broad Street, Middletown, CT.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016, 7-8:30pm, Exhibit Speaker Series: Wesleyan professor and monetary scholar Richard Grossman will talk about the wealth of colonial Middletown and its richest citizens. Were the ‘Middletown barons’ rich by our standards? The talk will take place in the Hubbard Room at Russell Library, 123 Broad Street, Middletown, CT.

This exhibition would not have been possible without funding, support and assistance of many organizations and individuals.  We are very grateful to them all!

A Vanished Port was funded by:

Connecticut Humanities

Maximilian E. & Marion O. Hoffman Foundation, Inc.

Return Jonathan Meigs Fund of Wesleyan University

Richard and Alexandra Adelstein

Jane Bradbury

Deborah D. Shapiro

Special thanks to:

Anne Farrow

Brenda Milkofsky

Pat Tully

David Wolfram

Erik Hesselberg

Lee McQuillan

John Giammatteo

Richard Bergan

Bill & Jennifer Argyle

Joseph Samolis

Adam Fleming

Susan Ryczek

Peter Gedrys

Phil Martin

Jonathan Crook

Maggie Masselli

Charlotte Scott

Craig Nakatsuka

Sadie Renjilian

Bebe LeGardeur

Olivia Sayeh

Nicole DiBenedetto

Gerry Daley

Brian Richmond

Shawn McLaughlin

Bob Van Dyke

Dmitri D’Alessandro

Al Monkovich

Gordon Hard

Marnie Goodman

The following books and documents were helpful in the preparation of this exhibition:

 BOOKS & ARTICLES

  • Alpern, Stanley B. “What Africans Got for their Slaves: A Master List of European Trade Goods.” African Studies Association 22 (1995): 5–43.
  • Atkins, John. A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil and the West-Indies; in His Majesty’s Ships the Swallow and the Weymouth. London: Ward & Chandler, 1737.
  • Benes, Peter, editor. Early American Probate Inventories. The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife: Annual Proceedings, 1987. (Boston: Boston University, 1989.)
  • Caulkins, Frances M. History of New London Connecticut from the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1860. New London, CT: New London County Historical Society, 2007. First published in 1852.
  • Corry, Joseph. Observations Upon the Windward Coast of Africa. London: Frank Cass, 1968. First published in 1807.
  • Dunn, Richard S. Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, VA. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972.
  • Easton, John. John Easton, Wills and Codicils, Inventories. No. 1259, State Archives, Connecticut State Library.
  • Eltis, David, and David Richardson. Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Foreword by David Brion Davis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
  • Eltis, David. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Falconbridge, Alexander. An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa. New York: AMS Press, 1977. First published in 1788.
  • Falconbridge, Anna Maria. Narrative of Two Voyages to the River Sierra Leoneduring the Years 1791, 1792. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2000.
  • Farrow, Anne. “Beyond Complicity: The Forgotten Story of Connecticut Slaveships.” Hartford Courant, Northeast, Apr. 3, 2005.
  • Farrow, Anne, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank: Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery. New York: Ballantine Books, 2005.
  • Farrow, Anne. The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2014.
  • Hirsch, Corin. Forgotten Drinks of Colonial New England: From Flips & Rattle-Skulls to Switchel & Spruce Beer.Charleston, S.C.: American Palate, A Division of The History Press, 2014.
  • Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
  • Kiple, Kenneth. The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  • Kiple, Kenneth F., and Brian T Higgins. “Mortality Caused by Dehydration during the Middle Passage.” Social Science History 13, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 421–37.
  • Log Book of Slave Traders between New London, Conn., & Africa: The Africa, John Easton, Commander, Jan. 18–April 10, 1757; The Good Hope, Alexander Urqhart, Commander, April 11–May 29, 1757; The Fox, William Taylor, Commander, March 28–August 10, 1758. State Archives, Connecticut State Library.
  • Macinnis, Peter. Bittersweet: The Story of Sugar. Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2002.
  • Martin, Margaret E. Merchants and Trade of the Connecticut River Valley, 1750-1820. Northampton, MA: Smith College, 1939.
  • Milkofsky, Brenda. A Grand Reliance: The West Indies Trade in the Connecticut Valley, 1630-1830. A Colloquium and 1992 Exhibition at the Connecticut River Museum.
  • Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Press, 1985.
  • Mouser, Bruce L. A Slaving Voyage to Africa and Jamaica, the Log of the Sandown, 1793–1794. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
  • Newton, John. The Journal of a Slave Trader, 1750–1754. Edited by Bernard Martin and Mark Spurrell. London: Epworth Press, 1962.
  • Northrup, David, ed. The Atlantic Slave Trade: Problems in World History. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1994.
  • Owen, Nicholas. Journal of a Slave-Dealer: A View of the Remarkable Axcedents in the Life of Nics. Owen on the Coast of Africa and America from the Year 1746 to the Year 1757. Edited by Eveline Martin. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1930.
  • Parker, Matthew. The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies. New York: Walker & Company, 2011.
  • Price, Richard, and Sally Price, eds. Stedman’s Surinam: Life in an Eighteenth-Century Slave Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
  • Rediker, Marcus. The Slaveship: A Human History. New York: Viking, 2007.
  • Stedman, John G., Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam. London: J. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church, & J. Edwards, Pall Mall, 1796.
  • Warner, Elizabeth A. A Pictorial History of Middletown. Greater Middletown Preservation Trust. Norfolk, VA: Donning, 2001. 

ACCOUNT BOOKS

  • Account Book of Middletown Merchant Samuel Starr. Middlesex County Historical Society Collections, 1987.x.12.
  • Account Book of Samuel Willis, 1765–1778, Middletown Merchant and Importer. Middlesex County Historical Society Collections, 1920.1.1.

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