Discovering Black Vermont: African American Farmers in Hinesburgh, 1790-1890

by Elise A. Guyette

Discovering Black Vermont by Elise A. Guyette tells the story of three generations of free African Americans trying to build a life and community in northern Vermont in the years following statehood. By piecing together fragments of the history of free black Americans in Vermont--tax and estate records, journals, diaries, and the like--the author recovers what is essentially a lost world, establishing a framework for using primary sources to document a forgotten past. The book is an invaluable resource for those conducting local history research and will serve as inspiration for high school and college students and their teachers. Originally published in 2010 by the University of Vermont and University Press of New England, it has been reprinted in 2020 by the Vermont Historical Society.

281 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 17, 2010

Reviews

[Carl Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elise Guyette (a well known Vermont historian and author of a very well done text book Vermont: A Cultural Patchwork) uses primary sources—mostly census, land records, and court records—along with her knowledge of Vermont history in particular and United states History in general to explore an community of black Vermonters.

Much of this exploration is, of necessity, extrapolation and educated guessing—that the families were connected with each other through maternal relationships, that the first settlers were close enough to their African heritage that they established a communal farming and social life reflecting that, that in the first twenty-twenty-five years of living in the community they were accepted as full citizens, playing leading roles in both the church and broader community life, that even as racism filtered into Vermont daily life in the first half of the 19th century, they were accepted as full citizens.

The families, as all families, prospered and faltered, grew and moved away. The families, as all families, had some who faltered, and had trouble, and some who succeeded, and did important things. Reflecting people of color in our collective history is an vital task, I believe. “Expanding our traditional history to include these rural families reminds us that our heroic past includes people of color who successfully negotiated a racialized society and passed their knowledge and skills for doing so on to the next generations.” (p 155)

Good stuff, really. It’s worth reading, probably most enjoyed by someone interested in the role of race in our culture/history, Vermont history, or history written directly from primary sources.

[Bobbie Groth]

This is the single most amazing book I have read this year. It was full of historical evidence to support a full, vibrant picture of how African American families took residence in Vermont, honing their farms out of wilderness, building their freedom and owning land, creating families that lived and thrived despite the ever-present strictures of racism and discrimination looming over them, and making surprising inroads with white neighbors and white towns. A forgotten piece of history everyone needs to know.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for Vermonters

This is a book that reads like history, biography, and adventure. The author's skill and determination to present us with facts are only exceeded by her ability to tell a story. I could not put this book down and I suspect, if you have any interest in Vermont history and any sensibility for the impact of racism on American life and culture, you won't be able to put it down either.

[Vika Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typically a title like "discovering xxx" would send me running in the opposite direction, since it often removed agency from the "discovered". Yet as a Vermonter who grew up very close to where this book describes, I know full well that we never heard anything about an African-American past, and I wanted to know more.

And thank goodness I did. Although Guyette sometimes takes liberties by stretching her narrative a bit further than the sources might support, it's in the interests of making her story more lively. And lively it is. She follows several families from their arrival in the area to their departure, discussing the roles they had in the local area as well as the changes in the farming culture as a whole, which profoundly impacted these black families. Having recently read The History of White People, with its background on the development of racial understanding during the same period, I finished the book feeling that I'd really learned something new about my own home town that I'd never known.

Although people who don't have an interest in rural New England might not find this book especially interesting, anyone with an interest in 18th and 19th century Black life, New England, and especially anyone from Chittenden through Addison counties in Vermont would enjoy this book. I'm immensely grateful to have been able to learn about this hidden past.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great in-depth study of the African American residents of Lincoln Hill in Hinesburgh, VT. Guyette found some wonderful sources which she uses to tell the stories of the two families: the Clarks and the Peters. It is wonderful to think that these Vermonters' stories are being told.