Sankofa Trolley Tours

TOUR DATES: MAY 20, JUN 10, JUL 8, AUG 12, SEP 16 Creating Community: White Enterprise and Black Society  Sankofa Tour Guide: Angela Matthews Institutionalized slavery in the Americas provided immense wealth and material culture to many European immigrants and their descendants in the Americas, as Portsmouth’s house museums bear witness. This tour brings into focus an economic system dependent upon the unpaid labor of enslaved African captives and their descendants who, against the odds, created one of this country’s…

TOUR DATES: JUL 15, AUG 26, SEP 16, SEP 23 Out of the Shadows: Enslavement and Emancipation Sankofa Tour Guide: Kevin Mitchell Daily life for enslaved children and adults in New England was variable according to the occupations of their owners and the changing seasons of the year. Captives became taxable property with few human rights, yet each individual was endowed with a particular range of abilities and talents, with different experiences and opportunities shaping their lives before, during and…

TOUR DATES: JUN 24, JUL 22 Port of Entry: Boys and Girls for Sale Sankofa Tour Guide:  JerriAnne Boggis Local newspapers carried merchants’ ads for ships returning to the port of Portsmouth laden with cargo from trade ports on the West Coast of Africa, the West Indies and the middle Atlantic coastal cities of Colonial America. Visit local wharves and auction sites related to the Atlantic Slave Trade, where a captive could be exchanged for “cash or good lumber” to…

TOUR DATES: JUL 29, SEP 30 Backyards and Cellar Holes, (Warner House) Sankofa Tour Guide: Valerie Cunningham NOTE: This tour meets at the Warner House on Daniel St. at 2pm As focus shifts from the front of the house to the backyards and cellar holes of New Hampshire’s historic house museums, we consider the material culture experienced by household servants, including those whose black bodies had helped create white family wealth. Tours are $20 pp Purchase Online or pay cash…

MAY 13, JUN 3, JUL 1 (INDEPENDENCE DAY WEEKEND), AUG 5, SEP 9 Let Freedom Ring: Resistance, Abolition and Civil Rights                                                           Sankofa Tour Guide: Nur Shoop Colonial Portsmouth newspapers testify to local the slave trade, runaways, abolitionists and anti-abolitionist activities, followed by conflicting opinions of the Civil War. In the 20th century,…

TOUR DATES: MAY 20, JUN 10, JUL 8, AUG 12, SEP 16 Creating Community: White Enterprise and Black Society  Sankofa Tour Guide: Angela Matthews Institutionalized slavery in the Americas provided immense wealth and material culture to many European immigrants and their descendants in the Americas, as Portsmouth’s house museums bear witness. This tour brings into focus an economic system dependent upon the unpaid labor of enslaved African captives and their descendants who, against the odds, created one of this country’s…

AUG 19 Armchair Tour: Reflections on Visit to the National Museum (Portsmouth Library) NOTE: This event is at Portsmouth Library, 2pm Observations and reactions will be shared by participants in a sponsored group tour of the country’s first national museum of African American history. This open conversation will welcome comments and questions from those in the audience who have been there or plan to visit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Tours are…

TOUR DATES: JUL 15, AUG 26, SEP 16, SEP 23 Out of the Shadows: Enslavement and Emancipation Sankofa Tour Guide: Kevin Mitchell Daily life for enslaved children and adults in New England was variable according to the occupations of their owners and the changing seasons of the year. Captives became taxable property with few human rights, yet each individual was endowed with a particular range of abilities and talents, with different experiences and opportunities shaping their lives before, during and…

TOUR DATE: SEP 2 (LABOR DAY WEEKEND) Ona Marie Judge, Freedom Seeker Sankofa Tour Guide: JerriAnne Boggis This is the true story of one young worker whose desire for freedom was greater than her devotion to the family who had enslaved her mother and was promising her a lifetime of bondage. Using her only assets, her ingenuity and the help of her friends, she was able to escape the Philadelphia household who owned her body. Ona Marie Judge Staines lived…

MAY 13, JUN 3, JUL 1 (INDEPENDENCE DAY WEEKEND), AUG 5, SEP 9 Let Freedom Ring: Resistance, Abolition and Civil Rights                                                           Sankofa Tour Guide: Nur Shoop Colonial Portsmouth newspapers testify to local the slave trade, runaways, abolitionists and anti-abolitionist activities, followed by conflicting opinions of the Civil War. In the 20th century,…