198. Entwined: Black and Indigenous Maritime History

 

We all know a little about New England and Connecticut’s  European maritime history. Dutch traders came to North America to trade for beaver pelts and English colonists came to start new communities such as Hartford. But a new exhibition at the Mystic Seaport Museum doesn’t rehash this history - it looks to reveal African and Indigenous perspectives on water and the sea. 

 

Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea is an exhibition that surveys the interplay

of maritime histories through Indigenous, African, and African American worldviews.

On view until Spring 2026, the exhibition examines  twelve millennia of Black

and Indigenous history through objects and loaned belongings from Indigenous and African

communities dating back 2,500 years, coalescing in a selection of 22 contemporary artworks.

 

For more on the exhibition, go here:

https://mysticseaport.org/press-release/a-new-major-exhibition-at-mystic-seaport-museum-entwined-freedom-sovereignty-and-the-sea/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAlsy5BhDeARIsABRc6ZsdXrwnuOdXNuyzChssJb7G7QDvtp-1ou95r4jkzwwmo2qLD7Q_1P4aAi39EALw_wcB

 

Entwined is the first exhibition by my guest Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes, Senior Curator of

Social Histories at Mystic Seaport Museum. She earned her PhD  in Anthropology with a focus in Archeology at the University of Connecticut.

 

Our second guest is Dr. Kathy Hermes, publisher of Connecticut Explored magazine and Project Historian of the award-winning project Uncovering Their History: African, African American and Native American Burials in Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground.

 

This is the third and final episode in our 2024 series on Connecticut’s maritime history. Don’t miss listening to Episode 182. Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution with best-selling author Eric Jay Dolan and Episode 180. Colonial Connecticut: Sugar, Slavery, and Connections to the West Indies with Dr. Mathew Warshaurer and Dr. Kathy Hermes. Here’s the links to these episodes:

 

https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/182-rebels-at-sea-privateering-in-the-american-revolution

 

  https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/180-colonial-connecticut-sugar-slavery-and-connections-to-the-west-indies

 

Here’s the link to the Seaman’s Protection Certificates-list on the Mystic Seaport website:

 https://research.mysticseaport.org/databases/protection/

 

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This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Pat