Unforgotten is a cross-platform sequence chronicling Connecticut’s ties to slavery. Be taught extra.
A number of years in the past, when Individuals nationwide started on a path of racial reckoning, parishioners at a small Connecticut church began to discover their group’s previous — and found historic ties to slavery.
Volunteers from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Essex searched by means of outdated archives. They ultimately found a 1777 probate file.
It listed an enslaved boy named Sawn or Sawney.
Then got here one other clue: a 1790 newspaper advert from a neighborhood farmer, providing a reward for the return of an enslaved musician who’d run away.
“Sawney is a fiddler,” the advert reads. “And he took with him the fiddle.”
The discover would ship volunteers on a meticulous search to be taught extra about Sawney and to reconstruct his story. They discovered his full identify: Sawney Freeman. And the group would ultimately be taught he wasn’t only a violinist, however a composer. They might discover handwritten copies of his music tucked away in a Connecticut library’s archive, and painstakingly put together it for modern musicians.
“I was astounded that it even survived,” says Jim Myslik, one of many St. John’s church volunteers. “The probability of something that’s really ephemeral like that surviving 220 years is really vanishingly small.”
And now, for the primary time in centuries, Sawney Freeman’s melodies are being carried out.
“I think we’re really privileged to hear his voice across over 200 years,” Myslik says. “It’s really moving.”
‘He took with him the fiddle’
For hundreds of years, most individuals didn’t learn about Sawney Freeman or his music.
It’s not shocking. This historical past wasn’t taught in class, however slavery has deep roots in Connecticut and throughout New England. Hundreds of individuals have been enslaved within the state. Courting again to earlier than the Revolutionary Conflict, the state profited off the work of enslaved individuals each at house and overseas.
Ayannah Brown
/
Connecticut Public
Historians have lengthy documented the so-called “Triangle Trade,” and enslaved individuals in Connecticut left narratives describing it, too.
“Almost all the lifeblood and cash to run this community came from slave labor,” Myslik says.
“Whereas there may solely have been a handful of slaves [in this area] … in 1800, the entire economic system of this space was primarily based on commerce with the West Indies.”
Researchers believe Sawney, who died in the late 1820s, was born into slavery in the home of Samuel Selden, a major landowner in Lyme, Connecticut. Church volunteers teamed up with a local historical society and the Witness Stones Project, a group that works with communities to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved, to learn more about Sawney’s life.
During the Revolutionary War, they found Selden was a colonel. But, in 1776, he was imprisoned in New York, where he died.
Col. Selden’s son would emancipate Sawney in 1793, records show.
“This is like detective work, right?” Myslik says. “He probably was mostly an agricultural worker but he also worked in shipyards.”
But that 1790 runaway ad also clued Myslik and the group into another part of Sawney’s life – his work as a musician.
There were other clues, too.
The 1864 book “History of Durham, Connecticut” by William Chauncey Fowler describes hearing violinist Sawney Freeman perform in the town.
“He accompanied his violin with a sort of organ, which he played with his foot … It added greatly to the volume of the music,” the passage reads. “At this ball besides contra dances they had jigs and reels.”
‘An instrument of liberation’
Historians find a surprising number of runaway notices for enslaved musicians, particularly fiddlers. Violin was a go-to instrument at social gatherings at the time – not just for enslavers, but also the enslaved.
The documentary film “Black Fiddlers” explores this history.
Music could be a vehicle of resistance in early America, says filmmaker Eduardo Montes-Bradley.
“We need to look at the fiddle, the violin, as an instrument of liberation in a sense, and freedom,” Montes-Bradley says.
Enslaved musicians were able to access better-quality work. They were hired out to play at parties and weddings. At the same time, the violin offered hope to enslaved musicians planning an escape.
“There are several challenges if you decide to run away,” Montes-Bradley says. “One is: Would you make it? And then: How are you going to survive if you make it? A fiddle or a violin is very easy to conceal … it’s easier to conceal than a piano.”
Another ad, another clue
Connecticut Journal in New Haven
/
Connecticut Public
The volunteers from St. John’s church would quickly uncover one thing extra.
Sawney was not solely a fiddler. He was additionally a composer.
“In 1801, there was an ad in the Connecticut Journal in New Haven that advertised something called the ‘Musician’s Pocket Companion’ written by Sawney Freeman, a free man of color from Connecticut,” Myslik says.
“Exceptionally unusual for the time.”
The truth is, it’s proof that Sawney is likely one of the earliest revealed Black composers in the USA.
Intrigued, the church group discovered an internet database of American music collections. It listed a manuscript of music attributed to Sawney Freeman as a part of a library assortment, saved in an archive solely about 40 miles away.
‘The paper is quite fragile’
Deep within the archive on the Watkinson Library on the campus of Trinity Faculty in Hartford, Eric Johnson-DeBaufre walks by means of rows of library stacks standing in chilly air.
“Paper likes that,” he says.
The librarian digs right into a uncommon and particular assortment the place the Sawney Freeman music manuscripts are stored.
With care, he lays the outdated paper out on a desk.
“The paper, as you can see, is quite fragile-looking,” he says. “It is all done by hand in a very clear, I think, dark ink. You have the names of tunes up at the top and then the composer to the side.”
Dave Wurtzel
/
Connecticut Public
Close to many tunes are the phrases “By Sawney Freeman” or “by S.F.”
The manuscript is from 1817. It’s handwritten with music for solo violin in addition to ensembles of 5 or 6 devices.
It features a mix of musical types, some leaning towards Western European classical music. Different tunes have extra of a folk-style fiddle really feel.
Widespread songs of the day, like “Polly Put the Kettle On” and “Yankee Doodle,” are scattered in between.
So how did this manuscript, which is over 200 years outdated, wind up on this library in Hartford?
It as soon as belonged to the daddy of the Watkinson Library’s first librarian, Johnson-DeBaufre says.
“I think it’s probably for that reason that this is in our collection,” he says. “It makes me wonder: How did he know about Sawney Freeman? Because this copy book seems to be the only record of Sawney Freeman’s musical compositions that has survived.”
The manuscript was a part of the gathering of Gurdon Trumbull, a service provider from Stonington, Connecticut, whose household took an curiosity in abolition. Relations had collected a wide range of materials concerning native Black residents.
“It’s clear that the family had some deep sort of sympathies with the plight of enslaved Black people in the country,” Johnson-DeBaufre says.
‘This is revolutionary’
Music is central to worship at St. John’s in Essex, and members needed to incorporate Sawney Freeman’s work as a part of their providers.
As soon as the manuscripts have been rediscovered, the library digitized the delicate paperwork and the church music director transcribed the notation into one thing modern gamers might learn.
In February, St. John’s gathered collectively musicians for a first-ever recording of works by Sawney Freeman.
The recording passed off in a chic library on the historic Waveny Home in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Among the many three violinists, one cellist and a piccolo and flute participant, the thrill is palpable. The group carried out items named “St. Alban’s,” “Liberty March,” “Solemnity,” and “The New Death March.”
There have been upbeat dance tunes and quieter, reflective items. The handwritten melodies of Freeman counsel he’d possible improvise throughout lengthy nights performing for dance engagements in Connecticut. Musicians on the 2024 recording session honored the composer by riffing on just a few of his tunes.
Jessica Valiente, who performed the piccolo and flute, says Freeman’s music was not what she anticipated.
“I didn’t expect it to sound quite so ‘colonial,’” Valiente says. “I know a little bit about Black fiddling traditions and I expected it to be more like fiddle tunes and a few of them were. But some of them seem to be from a church tradition or from more of a martial tradition.”
For the musicians, performing this newly-discovered music was shifting and poignant.
Ayannah Brown
/
Connecticut Public
Violinist Ilmar Gavilán, a member of the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet, says the expertise was enlightening and heartening.
“As a Black violinist myself, I was very surprised because I always thought this was a later event of people of color playing European instruments,” he says.
The music generally is a lesson for right this moment’s musicians of colour, he says.
“It also informs the younger generations of specifically Black string players that this legacy existed way before we even imagined. You just think, ‘Oh my gosh, that really did exist. I’m not alone! Somebody else was in love with the violin!’”
Briana Almonte, a 19-year-old violinist, says the expertise of enjoying Sawney Freeman’s music was thrilling.
“An early Black composer, composing these works. I feel like this is revolutionary,” Almonte says.
It’s essential that younger individuals be taught in regards to the contributions of early Black artists, Valiente says.
“I think that when people imagine the past, they often imagine a past where we weren’t there or we were just sort of doing the drudgery work,” she says. “We made many contributions that people have yet to know.”
Sawney Freeman’s contributions are nonetheless being uncovered. And now, after centuries of silence, his musical voice sings as soon as once more.
“It’s important to play this music,” Valiente says, “because people need to know that we were here.”
A playlist: Take heed to Sawney Freeman’s music
Editor’s observe: The reporter for this story, Diane Orson, is an expert violinist. She participated in enjoying three of the ensemble items through the recording: “St. Alban’s,” “Jefferson’s March” and “The Musician.”
Learn extra from Unforgotten: Connecticut’s Hidden Historical past of Slavery
Chapter 1: Suppose slavery wasn’t within the North? Suppose once more. Slavery has roots in Connecticut courting to 1600s
Chapter 2: ‘This is my country’: A family learns their ancestors were enslaved in Connecticut
Chapter 3: An enslaved man told his story. Descendants are determined to keep Venture Smith’s story alive
Chapter 4: A once-enslaved man’s music was hidden for hundreds of years. Go on a journey to rediscover his melodies
Chapter 5: As CT learns extra about its ties to slavery, college students form efforts to make sure the tales dwell on
In regards to the sequence: Why we’re reporting on Connecticut’s historical past of slavery
Subscribe to the podcast
Be taught extra about our Unforgotten podcast, which options further reporting and conversations.
Ship us your suggestions
Share your ideas on the tales on this sequence through e-mail at [email protected].
“Well bless their hearts.”
