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

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

Chattel slavery in Colonial America provided immense wealth and material culture to many European immigrants and their descendants in the Americas, as Portsmouth’s house museums bear witness. This talk, adapted from presenter Angela Matthews' Black Heritage Trail of NH tour, brings into sharp focus an economic system dependent upon international and domestic slave traders for a constant supply of free labor, such as the captive African people and their descendants who, against the odds, created one of this country’s oldest Black communities.

Registration is not required. 

About the Presenter
Angela Matthews got to know Portsmouth's families first as a teacher at Little Harbour School in 1973 and by 1979 as the director of Community Child Care Center where she gained a new admiration for children whose days began long before they reached her classroom. In 1990 her knowledge of Portsmouth and its families deepened in her role with NH Charitable Foundation where she learned that several Black families she knew had roots dating back to 1645. The GPCF Diversity Committee and meeting Valerie Cunningham had its most profound impact on Angela and spilled over to Portsmouth with Valerie's book Black Portsmouth, funded through a foundation grant as a curriculum guide for schools and libraries. The fundraising career path took Angela away from the Seacoast to Plymouth State University for most of the first decade of the new millennium and then back to Portsmouth for her last gig before retiring in 2014 from Star Island Corporation. Angela has been giving tours for the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire since 2015 and focuses on the stories of Portsmouth's Black families of the mid-1700s to early 1800s. "It's stories that change our hearts and minds," said Angela. "I get confirmation of that after every tour."  She hopes your experience will be the same after you meet these amazing Americans.