Witness Stones Project Inc.

Restore History, Educate, and Honor Humanity

#MosesCT1

Curriculum Design and Memorials with Witness Stones

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From the Anti-Racist Teaching & Learning Collective on March 22, 2021

The Witness Stones Project began in 2017 in Guilford, Connecticut with the placement of three small plaques commemorating the lives of Moses, Candace, and Phillis. The project was inspired by the Stolpersteine project, which works to place small stones inscribed with the names and life details of Jews who were kidnapped and murdered during the Holocaust in front of the homes in which they used to live. Witness Stones has been working to memorialize enslaved individuals in several cities across Connecticut in a similar way. Continue reading.

 

Racial Trauma: Unchaining Ancestors’ Stories to Heal Cities

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Students listening to the talks their classmates are giving / Photo courtesy of Douglas Nygren

By Susana F. Molina in The Urban Activist on February 22, 2021

February is Afro-American History Month. It pays tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity. This year’s commemoration, eight months after the events in Minneapolis, has turned out in a different tone. The racial trauma of an unpayable moral debt lingers over American cities.

Since the Black Awakening of the 1960s Americans have felt more confident about the importance of black history and the contributions of Afro-Americans to history and culture. Across the Atlantic the Civil Rights movements of the sixties made young generations of Germans break with a period of silence imposed by their parents about national-socialism and the Holocaust. They started a long process to come to terms with their history. But have Americans done the same with slavery? Continue reading.

National Recognition for Witness Stones in Teaching Tolerance

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Photo Credit: Shana Sureck and Ian Christmann from Teaching Tolerance Magazine

Please read the feature article, “Bearing Witness” by Jenifer Frank, in the Spring 2019 issue of Teaching Tolerance:

Hana started her school paper with a description of Guilford’s town green—and for good reason. The beautiful, centuries-old space is the hub of this Connecticut coastal community. Residents like Hana, who attends Adams Middle School in Guilford, stroll beneath its shade trees, browse at the quaint shops on its perimeter and gather there for the town’s annual Holiday Tree Lighting. Continue Reading.

Teaching Tolerance is on a mission is to help teachers and schools educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. They provide free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use their materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants. The program emphasizes social justice and anti-bias.

Slavery in New England

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Dennis Culliton and Douglas Nygren spoke to the Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences (Photo: Gregory Tignor and Monica Aspianto)

 

Minutes of the 1464th Meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences by Gregory Tignor and Monica Aspiantoon on February 13, 2018

The President introduced Douglas Nygren who introduced the guest speaker with the following statement. “When I approached Gregory last April about our doing a presentation on the Witness Stone Project and slavery in Guilford, he booked us for February because it is Black History Month.  That sounded appropriate. I didn’t know, however, how appropriate the talk would be. Charlottesville had not occurred, and the project we had imagined was just an idea. The plan was to honor those enslaved in Guilford with memory stones that would be placed in the sidewalk. They would bear the enslaved person’s name and vital data. We hoped to have a school component, but didn’t know whether that would be possible and we didn’t know how the town would receive our project. We have been surprised and grateful at how receptive the town has been. Continue reading.

Indenture of Moses to the Reverend Amos Fowler

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Indentures are traditionally an agreement between two parties where one party agrees to provide labor in recompense for money loaned to them (in many cases, a ship’s passage from Europe to the New World) or in recompense for a skilled learned such as an apprenticeship.  Indentures usually had time limits and responsibilities of both parties under the indenture.  This indenture continues the servitude of Moses and is without time limits, without training and without payment to Moses, he receives what we would call room and board. Other documents refer to Moses’s brothers and sisters with other members of the Guilford community. 

 

This Indenture (Witnesses that) Ruth Naughtye of Guilford

in the County of New Haven (in the Colony) of Connecticut in New England w(?)

(for and In Consideration of the payments herein aftermentioned) Hath & 

by these Presents Doth Put out, and Bind her Negro Man Named, Moses

a Servant to Amos Fowler of Guilford aforesd, Clerk, to Serve him from

the day of the Date hereof During the whole Time and Term of the Natural

Life of the sd Moses, and until his Death; During which Term the sd

Negro Man Shall Constantly Serve the sd Amos Fowler his Heirs Ex-

-ecutors or Admt’rs according to his or theirLawful Commands; And

the sd Amos Fowler or him self his Heirs Executors & Admt’rs Doth

Covenant and Promise to find and provide for sd Negro Man Sutable

Meat, Drink, Apparrel, Washing and Lodging During the sd Term

both in sickness and health, and to pay all Rates & Taxes that

may arise on sd Negro Man’s Head; And the sd Amos Fowler Doth

for himself his Heirs Executors & Admt’rs further Covenant and Promise

not to Sell or Dispose of sd Negro Man in Service to any other Persons

but that the sd Moses Shall Remain and be kept in the Service

of him the sd Fowler and his Heirs During the whole Term of his

(sd Moses’s) Natural Life; And the sd Amos Fowler, for himself his

Heirs Executors and Admt’rs Doth further Covenant and Promise to pay

to sd Ruth Naughtye (for sd Negro Man’s Service) Twelve Pounds, Law-

-ful money, a year, to be paid Yearly and every Year During the Term of

the Natural Life of the sd RuthNaughtye, and no longer ——————-

In Witness whereof the Parties have Interchangeably Set to their hands and

Seals this Ninth Day of November Annos Domini 1762 ———————

Signed Sealed and Delivered (signed) Amos Fowler

In presence of —————–

John Redfield

Nath’l Hill

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