A Quest to Thrive: Economics of Slavery & Portsmouth’s Early Black Community

Sankofa Tour Guide: Valerie Fagin Can you imagine the hustle and bustle of a prosperous colonial seaport town? This tour invites you to discover the world of early Portsmouth from the perspective of African American women. In spite of enslavement and hardship, these women fought for freedom, defied a sitting president, and educated generations of children to follow. Hear their stories about love and faith and struggle, as you walk past the homes of the families who enslaved them.

Tour Guide: Barbara Rimkunas Walk in the footsteps of Exeter’s earlier generations and explore the racial history of the town—the conflicts, concessions, and changes that have taken place over time. This tour will explore how racial identity has shaped Exeter’s history and will serve to open a dialogue that will help shape its future. Meeting place: Exeter Town Hall, Front Street

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Europeans and Africans living in America joined with Native Americans, creating plant-based therapies to care for the body. The Shakers, at Canterbury and other villages, not only adopted some of these therapies but also refined and sold their own remedies. Join Curator and Historian Dr. Shirley Wajda for a special talk and tour on the history of medicine at Canterbury Shaker Village. Participants will explore several buildings including the Infirmary and the Syrup…

Tour Guide: David Nelson Harriet E. Wilson was the first African American of any gender to publish a novel on the North American continent. Her novel Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black was published in 1859. Born a free person of color in New Hampshire, Wilson was orphaned when young and bound until the age of 18 as an indentured servant. She struggled to make a living after that, marrying twice; her only son George…

Sankofa Scholar & Tour Guide: Nur Shoop Colonial Portsmouth newspapers would testify to the local slave trade, runaways, abolitionists, and anti-abolitionist activities, followed by conflicting opinions of the Civil War. In the 20th century, the legacy of that early history was reflected in the news about de facto segregation in housing and public places. This tour includes many of those historic landmarks from the early nineteenth through the twentieth centuries.

In 2009, the Center for the Humanities at the University of New Hampshire produced a 30-minute documentary, Uprooted: Heartache and Hope in New Hampshire, that featured the lives of five refugees who were re-settled in New Hampshire. They told their personal stories of war, persecution, refugee camps, and starting again in New Hampshire. Umija and Rasim Gusinac, Udai Baskota, Zahara Mahitula, and Munaf Mahmood come from different countries and backgrounds, but they are part of New Hampshire's ongoing demographic narrative. This…

It is not an overstatement to say that world culture has been influenced by Jamaican reggae music and culture. With its roots grounded in an African sensibility of expressing philosophical words through music, its slow rhythmic beat, its militant, rebellious, and spiritual lyrics, and its positive message about unity, reggae continues to be a source for highlighting issues of social justice. This festival celebrates the music of the African Diaspora and honors the legacy of roots reggae.  Join us for…

In African societies, dance serves many complex social purposes. Often there is no clear distinction between ritual celebration, social recreation, and history-keeping. African Diasporic dances, Samba and tap dance, line dance, hip hop, Capoeira, and twerking are all dance styles that have their origins on the continent of Africa. Camille A. Brown and Dancers is a group that is reclaiming Black narratives for Black and brown people and elevating African Diasporic culture to its rightful place in American society. Spreading…

Traditionally the drum was the heartbeat and soul of African communities, thus holding deep historic and symbolic significance. The drums herald political and social events and ceremonies of birth, death, and marriage. They spark courtships, home-coming and going, and accompany religious rites and rituals that call up ancestral spirits while creating an atmosphere that promotes healing and social resilience. This commemorative event, live streaming from the Portsmouth African Burying Ground, pays homage to the ancestors buried there. The healing beat…

Performance plays a key role in narrating the African story in America. The Negro spirituals sung by enslaved Africans laid the foundation for today’s gospel, blues, jazz, and rap music. All of these musical forms provide artists the chance to express the Black experience. Returning to Portsmouth, The Howard Gospel Choir, a group of students, alumni, and community members from Howard University, will lift our spirits as we celebrate, heal, and empower our communities. As the first college choir of its…

Tour Guides: Rekha Mahadevan, Laramie Wilson, or Dariya Steele 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 serve in the master’s house or work on the docks…

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and heroic orator for liberty, delivered one of his most famous speeches in which he asked, “What to the slave is your Fourth of July?” In addressing an Independence Day observance in Rochester, New York, his speech was a blistering indictment of an American idealism that ignored and accepted the inhuman treatment of enslaved African Americans as part of the country’s identity and economy. Ironically, even though Douglass’ words spoke directly to…

Sankofa Tour Guide: Erika Varga, Lillian Buckley, Wanda Dorlean, or Meghan Dunn This tour describes how African residents of a northern port town used their own traditions of resilience and mutual aid to establish one of Maine's earliest African American communities. You will hear stories of Black people living here during colonial slavery times through the modern era, a history often ignored and rarely identified with the heritage of northern New England. Meeting place: Wallingford Square downtown Kittery.