Courtesy of Massachusetts Historical Society
The multimedia in We Were Here Too is based on historic maps, archival images, paintings, colonial-era texts, court documents, headstone inscriptions, and publications by and about the former Black residents of the North End.
This project would be impossible without centuries of published research by historians, archaeologists, authors and archives. Special thanks to L’Merchie Frazier, project Consulting Historian, for her research into The New England Quarterly and The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.
Special acknowledgement to Historian Dr. Vivian R. Johnson, for uncovering the court documents related to Zipporah Potter Atkins’ historic property purchase in 1670.
John Singleton Copley: The Death of Major Peirson, 6 January 1781 (1783) Jersey Museum and Art Gallery
More about the Black man depicted in this painting: University of Oxford
"The first Africans arrived in Boston during the 1630s, and Massachusetts was the first North American colony to legalize slavery in its 1641 Body of Liberty. Puritan wealth and prosperity grew through Massachusetts’ involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.
During (Crispus) Attucks’s lifetime, in the 1760s, over 4,000 enslaved people lived in Massachusetts. By the eve of the Revolution, about ten percent of Boston’s population was Black." — Revolutionary Spaces: Connection to Black Community
From: Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade by David Eltis and David Richardson, Yale University Press
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300212549/atlas-of-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/
RESEARCH SOURCES
Alex R. Goldfield, Author
North End: A Brief History of Boston’s Oldest Neighborhood
American Antiquarian Society
Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, Charlie Rosenberg, Author
Boston’s North End
Boston Magazine
Dart Adams, Historian
Boston Women’s Heritage Trail
City of Boston Archaeology Department
Joseph Bagley
City of Boston Archive
Kristen Lafferty
City of Boston Historic Burying Ground Initiative
Parks & Recreation Department
Kelly Thomas
Forbes Magazine
Kiona Smith
Freedom Trail Foundation
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Historical Marker Database
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
Arthur Boylston
Joseph Bagley, Author
A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts
Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them
L’Merchie Frazier, Consulting Historian
Massachusetts Archive
Caitlin Ramos
Samuel Edwards
Erini Karoutsos
Massachusetts Historical Association
Museum of African American History
Byron Rushing
National Museum of African American History and Culture
National Park Service
Paul Revere Memorial Association
PBS: The Africans in America TV Series
Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Dorchester, MA
The Black Heritage Trail®
United States Library of Congress
University of Massachusetts Boston
Robert J. Shaw
WGBH Say Brother TV series
Host Topper Carew
Wikipedia Foundation