Survival. Loss. Independence. Resilience.
Those were the words an archaeologist used to describe the story of the Freeman family, who counted among its members two of Derby’s “black governors,” elected by African-American communities of the time to perform social and political duties.
But for nearly two centuries, most of the Freemans’ story was buried in the rocky land off Silver Hill Road where the family’s homestead once stood.
A 2012 dig by students at Central Connecticut State University unearthed, literally, much more information about the family and their place in contemporary society.
Warren Perry, the director of the Africana Studies Archaeology Lab at CSCU, described the July 2012 dig during the Derby Historical Society’s 24th Annual Appeal Thanksgiving Reception Nov. 24 at Grassy Hill Lodge.
“The black governors of Connecticut have become better known,” Perry said. ”From the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s the black governors were political and social leaders (in the black community) … They were tolerated by whites as harmless and aspirational.”
Quosh Freeman, a former slave, and his son, Roswell Freeman, both served the African-American community as “black governors” in the 19th century.
They acted as “intermediaries between blacks and whites,” said CCSU archaeologist Gerald Sawyer, Perry’s colleague.
Perry said the black governors “parodied white practice.”
To this day the precise role played by “black governors” is somewhat murky. Click here to check out a page about the title from the Hartford Black History Project. The Electronic Valley also has some information — and the photo of Nancy Freeman shown above — at this page.
But researchers are learning more and more through projects like the one in Derby.
For one thing, the 2012 dig discovered that the Freeman property was home to “more than a single homestead,” Perry said.
Several foundations of dwellings are on the property, as well as a barn foundation and an “empty foundation” that never held a structure.
Click here to read more about the dig from a previous story.
The property is now part of Osbornedale State Park.
“The Freemans became owners of the property in 1800, and in 1810 Quosh Freeman was elected black governor of Derby. He died in the 1820s and his son, Roswell inherited the property,” Perry said.
Roswell served as black governor from 1830 – 37.
The archaeologists and their students also found items that were “an implication of women” living there, Perry said.
Some other items found at the site — a cigarette case and a gun flint — were made of “European material,” Perry said, but they were “speaking in an African voice.”
As they studied items they found at the site, Perry said he and his team were “rediscovering lives of people who were seldom given the chance to say what they valued in everyday life.”
Perry’s colleague Janet Woodruff, who works at the Africana Studies Lab, said the team plans to return to the Freeman site in Derby in 2016 with students for what they call “field school.”
Perry said public participation is welcomed during their excavations.
“There’s not much glory” in the work they do, he said.
During the meeting the historical society also presented the prestigious Dr. John I. Howe Award to Valley native Ned Miller, President of the Ned Miller Agency, a Shelton insurance business. Howe was a physician who became successful businessman after inventing a way to mass produce pins.
According to the program, the award is given “to those whose presence has consistently benefited the Valley in the spirit of its namesake, through activism, perseverance, and/or philanthropy to the extend that they will be remembered in a historical context by future generations.”
