Documenting the Early History of Black Lives in the Connecticut River Valley

Documenting the Early History of Black Lives
in the Connecticut River Valley

Presented by the Pioneer Valley History Network, the UMass Amherst Public History Program, and the UMass Amherst W.E.B. Du Bois Library.

Documenting the Early History of Black Lives in the Connecticut River Valley is a community-based research project in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin Counties. The project aims to document the lives of free, enslaved, and formerly enslaved Black residents of the Connecticut River Valley prior to 1900. Participating historical organizations, in collaboration with student and volunteer researchers, are performing a “deep dive” into their archival holdings.

Participating organizations as of spring 2023 include the Amherst Historical Society and Museum, Belchertown Historical Association, the David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground RR Studies, Forbes Library, the Hadley Historical Society, Historical Society of Greenfield, Historic Northampton, the Longmeadow Historical Society, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation, the South Hadley Historical Commission and the Wood Museum of Springfield History.

This project launched on Juneteenth 2021 with a major public event, featuring noted scholars of Black history in Western Massachusetts, including a keynote by Dr. Whitney Battle-Baptiste.

To date, researchers have amassed more than 4,400 entries into the project’s public dataset of local Black history. The project website features resources supporting future research on Black history in the Connecticut River Valley: an online handbook with reflective and practice essays, biographical sketches sharing the stories of more than a dozen local Black historical figures, an extensive research guide with dedicated one-on-one research support by librarians at the UMass Amherst W.E.B. Du Bois Library, and a gathering of additional resources spotlighting other scholarship and public projects on local and regional Black history.

Founding support for this project was provided by Mass Humanities and the UMass Amherst Public Service Endowment Grant, with additional financial support provided by the UMass Amherst History Department; Five Colleges, Inc.; and a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to Enslaved.org.

Photo courtesy of the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts.