Lucy Terry Prince: A Window into African American Life in Early Rural New England

FAIN: MT-290275-23

Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (Deerfield, MA 01342-5004)
Timothy C. Neumann (Project Director: June 2022 to present)

Prototyping a website about African American history in colonial and early Republic New England.

This project will create a prototype of a website that will increase understanding of the lives of African Americans in early rural New England. Its focus will be on Lucy Terry Prince, the first documented African American poet. Her life, from birth and captivity in Africa c.1726 to enslavement in Deerfield, MA, to her death as a free woman in Vermont in 1821, encompasses signal events in the lives of enslaved people. Lucy’s life illuminates important aspects of the Revolutionary era: a) how the slave trade and enslaved African American labor were instrumental in creating a thriving maritime economy in colonial New England; b) how desire for independence fueled by that economy gave rise to Revolutionary political principles that enslaved people seized upon to obtain their freedom; c) how African Americans struggled to enact those principles after the Revolution; and d) how, in this context, African Americans cultivated and expressed their essential humanity and self-determination.

Associated Products

Lucy Terry Prince: African American Experiences in Early Rural New England (Web Resource)
Title: Lucy Terry Prince: African American Experiences in Early Rural New England
Author: Timothy C. Neumann
Author: Dr. Barbara Mathews
Author: Dr. Joanne Melish
Author: Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara
Author: Lynne Manring
Abstract: Grant products include 1) the completed proof-of-concept website prototype https://lucyterryprince-proto.deerfield-ma.org/; 2) a robust marketing plan; 3) dynamic collaborations with consulting scholars, writers, evaluator, and project staff to create the working prototype and to build the project infrastructure essential to developing the full website; 4) a fully evolved grant proposal to produce the proposed website, provisionally titled, Lucy Terry Prince: African American Experiences in Early Rural New England.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: http://https://lucyterryprince-proto.deerfield-ma.org/
Primary URL Description: The website foregrounds people of color often marginalized in traditional historical narratives of the colonial period and the nation’s founding. The overarching goal of the project has been to create a working prototype as a proof-of-concept for a website where the public can learn about New England slavery and an enduring American paradox: how the founding ideals of the American republic—that all people are created equal and have fundamental rights—emerged in a struggle for independence by a colonial maritime economy whose prosperity derived in large measure from denying those rights to enslaved people; and how enslaved people seized upon those Revolutionary principles to seek their own freedom, claim their fundamental rights, and make significant contributions to American social, political, and cultural life. Understanding this history is critical for Americans to deal with dilemmas of racism and inequality that are its legacies.

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