The ever-expanding
Freeman Institute Black History
Collection has
items such as:
1.
Authentic, priceless slave ball, with handle (50 lb.) -- #3
written on it, for "trouble-makers", manufactured late 1600s
-- used on the London-based slave ship, Henrietta
Marie, the oldest identifiable slave ship wreck in the world
(summer, 1700) ; featured in National Geographic's (August,
2002).
By one estimate Henrietta Marie’s
cargo grossed well over £3,000 (more than $400,000 today)
for the ship’s investors. Most of the captives were headed
for sugar plantations where they’d be worked to exhaustion,
many dying within five to ten years.
Sturdy and fast, The Henrietta
Marie traveled the infamous triangular trade route favored
by the slavers - from England to the Guinea coast, to the
Americas, then home again. Accounts relating to the
Henrietta Marie’s voyages were uncovered, as were the
names of her investors, captains, and wills of some of her
crew members. Artifacts found at the site proved
particularly helpful in creating a picture of shipboard life
and the practices of the slave trade.
2. Two Wedgwood jasperware black on white Anti-Slavery
medallions, with the bound slave on the front, and the words
"Am I Not A Man and A Brother?" around it.
Also, a rare 1800s antique bronze figure of man (6" high,
weighs 18 oz.) pictured in medallion.
3. One-of-a-kind signed letters/albums/contracts/sheet music from Nat King Cole, Dizzy
Gillespie, Duke
Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong, B. B. King, Ethel Waters, Pearl
Bailey, Miles Davis, Fats Domino, Quincy Jones, Earl Hines, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis, Jr.,
Grover Washington, Jr., Count Basie,
Mills Brothers, Ozzie Davis,
Lena Horne, Four Tops, Cicely Tyson, James Brown, Charlie
Pride, Bo Diddley, Bobby Blue and others...
4. A rare 1838 (third edition) copy of Phillis Wheatley's book,
"Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, A Native African
and a Slave" -- Includes memoir, George
Washington's letter to Wheatley, preface by John Wheatley,
plus poems by another slave, George Moses Horton, with
introduction and letters. And also the 1773 edition of the
Gentleman's Magazine -- first published mention of Phillis
Wheatley's book, first printed in the UK, paid for by the
Countess of Huntingdon.
5. Silver Civil War locket (1860s), containing two tin-type pictures
of African American women, worn by an African American
soldier.
6. The Rosetta Stone, a First Edition 55-page
article in Archaeologia: Miscellaneous
Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume XVI, published by The
Society of Antiquaries of London. 1812. Some of the first
published articles about the Rosetta Stone. This is historic
in light of the fact that the code to Hieroglyphics wasn't
cracked until 1822 by Jean Champollion.
7. Riggs Bank check written and signed on July 3, 1907 by
Judson W. Lyons, ex-slave from Georgia and first
African-American lawyer to practice in the state of Georgia.
He was appointed Register of the US Treasury from 1898-1906
and as such, his signature appeared on US currency issued
during those years.
8. 1820s "T Porter" slave button (from Antigua, British West
Indies), used to identify the owner of a slave.
9.
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