Lucy Terry Prince
Sold Out of Africa
Lucy is captured and taken away from all that is safe and familiar.
Millions of captured Africans imprisoned at the West Africa coast were sold and forced into the ships that would transport them to the Americas in the infamous Middle Passage.
For Sale Again
Three-year old Lucy is among a group of captured Africans for sale in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Africans who survived capture and the horrors of the Middle Passage encountered a world where loss of freedom and the arbitrary power of their enslavers were the only constants.
A Strange New Life
Eight-year-old Lucy arrives in a new place but her status as an enslaved child does not change.
Enslaved people could be sold at a moment’s notice to new captors anytime, anywhere, upending any and all relationships including parents, children, siblings and spouses.
Enslaved at the Wells's House
Lucy and Cesar are expected to undertake the most menial tasks on a rural farm in an unending cycle of labor.
Enslaved people provided essential, often backbreaking agricultural labor but unlike free members of an 18th-century household, they worked for someone else’s benefit.
Joining the Church
Lucy joins a baptized body of Protestant believers, free and enslaved, who believe they have experienced God’s saving grace.
Enslaved people who embraced Christianity were still expected to accept what enslavers insisted was their God-ordained station in this life: human property.
Singer of History
Lucy sings her poem, the Bars Fight, to customers in Ebenezer Wells’s tavern.
Many enslaved people brought their story-telling and oral traditions to the Americas. Their talent could sometimes confer social status in the White community.
In the Community
Running errands for her enslaver, Lucy stops at the busy Williams store, encountering many people including one who might play a central role in her life.
New Englanders at times permitted enslaved people to earn a bit of money; their purchases of rum, tobacco, chocolate, and textiles linked them to the trans-Atlantic slave economy.
Community Within Community
As Abijah walks Lucy home along the village street they encounter several Black residents of Deerfield and surrounding towns.
An interior network of relationships among enslaved and free people of color fostered an essential “community within community” in Deerfield and other New England towns.
A Fruitful Union
Lucy and Abijah get married and begin their life together as free people.
If an enslaved women was emancipated, her new status ensured that any children she might have would be born free.
Sons of the Revolution
Like many Black mothers, Lucy sends her sons off to fight in the Revolution.
Even as they embraced the promises of the American Revolution, African American and Indigenous people knew the bitter irony of fighting for freedom alongside colonial enslavers.
Hostile Neighbors
Lucy and Abijah face intimidation and violence from hostile neighbors as they struggle to make a life for themselves on their Vermont farm.
Even as Vermont’s constitution put slavery on the defensive, free African Americans often encountered challenges as they endeavored to live and prosper as citizens of a new nation.
Fighting for Justice
Lucy fights in court to protect her family's legal claim to their land and for fair treatment by their neighbors.
The laws of Vermont and other New England states protected their citizens’ property rights while simultaneously posing challenges to those rights for free people of color.
Returning to Deerfield
Her children are grown and Lucy is recently widowed when she decides to return to Deerfield for a visit.
Continued ties between formerly enslaved people with families and communities where they were enslaved highlight a sense of connection to people and place, both positive and negative.