The Logbooks: Connecticut's Slave Ships and Human Memory

217 Pages·2014·14.49 MB·English

by  Anne Farrow

The Logbooks

A DRIFTLESS CONNECTICUT SERIES BOOK
This book is a 2014 selection in the Driftless Connecticut Series, for an
outstanding book in any field on a Connecticut topic or written by a
Connecticut author.
ALSO BY ANNE FARROW
Complicity: How the North Promoted,
Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery
(2005; with Joel Lang & Jenifer Frank)
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
ANNE FARROW
•
The
Logbooks
CONNECTICUT’S SLAVE SHIPS
AND HUMAN MEMORY
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
© 2014 Anne Farrow
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Eric M. Brooks
Typeset in Monotype Bell by Passumpsic Publishing
Wesleyan University Press is a member of the
Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets
their minimum requirement for recycled paper.
The Driftless Connecticut Series is funded by the
Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund
at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
5 4 3 2 1
Cover photograph: The jetty at Bence Island, by Thomas Brown/Hartford Courant.
For thousands of African people, walking this gravel path was their last moment on African soil.
FOR STEPHEN,
who has a verdant heart

Contents
Preface xi
[ ONE ]
RECOVERING THE STORY
Cleared for Africa 1
Shadows on the Wall 4
Creating a Record 7
“How Did You Find Me?” 18
[ TWO ]
THE HAUNTED LAND
Meeting the Slave Traders 21
Another Century, Not My Own 29
The Past in Dreams 32
History for an Abandoned Place 35
The Screaming Man 48
The Story of a Stone 55
The Slaughterhouse 60
[ THREE ]
TROUBLE IN MIND
A Book with Many Bookmarks 69
A Platform for Memory 73
The Pain That Survives 86
The Fragile Power 91
History That Won’t End 96