Browse Items (15 total)

  • Collection: Black History Research Articles

The Buffalo Soldiers in Vermont, 1909-1913

BuffaloSoldiersInVermont.pdf
In July 1909, the Tenth United States Cavalry Regiment, one of four regular army black regiments collectively known as the Buffalo Soldiers, arrived in Burlington, Vermont, to begin a four-year tour of duty at Fort Ethan Allen in neighboring…

The strange career of Benjamin Franklin Prentiss, antislavery lawyer

VHS7902BenjaminFranklinPrentiss.pdf
A nineteenth-century genealogist alleged that Prentiss, the young St. Albans amanuensis of Jeffrey Brace's 1810 memoir, The Blind African Slave, practiced law in Richmond, Virginia, and ran a plantation in Wheeling, West Virginia. Although this…

African Americans in Addison County, Charlotte, and Hinesburgh, Vermont, 1790-1860

VHS780102_15-42.pdf
Black Vermonters were, by definition, oddballs -- a tiny minority who chose the country over the city. How did they fare in this rural environment? What sort of work did they find in Vermont's agrarian economy? Did they own farms or homes? Were they…

African Americans in Burlington, Vermont, 1880-1990

11_Whitfield.pdf
The history of Black people in Burlington during the late nineteenth century developed within the wider context of other local ethnic groups, but also should be understood on its own terms. At the same time, Afro-Burlingtonians shared many…

Slavery in Burlington? : an historical note

SlaveryInBurlington.pdf
This brief article lays out strong evidence that Lucy Caroline (Allen) Hitchcock, daughter of Ethan Allen, was the owner of two slaves, Lavinia Parker and her son Francis, between 1835-1841 in Burlington, Vermont.

Postscript: Andrew Harris at the University of Vermont

VH8601AndrewHarrisAtUVM.pdf
A remarkable set of resolutions that the student body of Bowdoin College in Maine passed in 1838 denounced the "unfounded and wicked prejudice" displayed against Andrew Harris at the University of Vermont "for possessing a complexion which God saw…

Andrew Harris, Vermont's forgotten abolitionist

VHS8302AndrewHarris.pdf
Andrew Harris was a man of constant activity and tremendous energies, all of which were devoted to what at the time was the truly radical cause of racial equality in America. His untimely death of fever in December 1841 at the age of 27 is the only…

"For colored people [they] had a great many friends:" the Phillips-Lynde family of Windham, Connecticut, and Brookfield, Vermont

VH8801ForColoredPeople.pdf
Recent scholarship has uncovered the lives of Black soldiers, farmers, landowners, voters, and taxpayers who were as much a part of the early history of this country and this state as the founders. John and Judith Lynde are not unique, and similar…

The letters of Louden S. Langley

LangleyLetters_vol67.pdf
Langley was an African- American born into a large farm family in Huntington, Vermont. Educated and articulate, he posted many newspaper editorials decrying the colonization schemes of the mid-1800's, the evils of slavery, and the unjust treatment of…

Coventry's Mero Family in the Civil War

VermontsNorthlandJournal1502MeroFamily.pdf
Civil War service of Andrew H. Mero, Charles W. Mero, Edward H. Mero, and Sylvester Mero of Coventry, Vermont, in the Massachusetts 54th.

The working lives of African Vermonters in census and literature, 1790-1870

WorkingLivesOfAfricanVermonters.pdf
As in other states, the white majority delegated most Blacks to menial positions, reserving for Anglo-Saxon whites high status jobs and social privileges.

The power of erasure: reflections on civil war, race, and growing up White in Vermont

VHS8402PowerOfErasure.pdf
Guyette makes a case for looking at Vermont's history as it concerns the treatment of African Americans and how we need "to understand our real history and the 'culture-wide stampeded spirit' engendered by our myths that burden people of color."