Connecticut once held the largest enslaved population in New England.

A state census reveals that 5,098 of Connecticut’s residents were enslaved in 1774. The state’s enslaved population was greater than that of any other New England colony before the Revolutionary War, according to Michael Morand, director of community engagement at Yale’s Beinecke Library.

Enslaved individuals came to Connecticut from many different places. The state’s central location in the colonies meant that traders could shuttle enslaved people to and from New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, while New London served as a bustling port for trans-Atlantic trade. 

Records from SlaveVoyages, a database of voyages transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic from the 16th to 19th centuries, show that 11 ships sailed directly to Connecticut carrying enslaved people intended for sale. The captives were purchased from unspecified locations in Africa and parts of the Caribbean with high enslaved populations.

Morand said these voyages represented only one part of Connecticut’s maritime connection to slavery. Half of the state’s maritime trade in the 18th century was devoted to the Caribbean, exporting crops and livestock to plantations in exchange for sugar and rum produced by enslaved communities.

Successful trade and busy seaports made Connecticut wealthy, increasing demand for cheap labor and the money to pay for it. Census data shows that the state’s enslaved population grew by 75% from 1756 to 1774.

In 1643, Connecticut signed one of the first laws requiring local officials to assist in capturing enslaved runaways. Though the state passed an act to gradually abolish slavery in 1784, it would not officially end the practice until 1848 — about six decades after Vermont, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

“Connecticut was one of the most ardent advocates for enslavement as a whole for a much longer time than other parts of New England,” Morand said. 

John Mills, a Bloomfield-based genealogist who traces family histories of the formerly enslaved, emphasizes the importance of finding their stories. One of his great-great-grandfathers, Ned, was enslaved in Texas before being freed on Juneteenth. Upon emancipation he took on the last name Mills — that of his enslaver.

“You start to see yourself in history,” Mills said. 

Connecticut’s most widely remembered stories involved feats of valor and direct action. In 1839, 53 captive Mende people taken from Sierra Leone revolted aboard the Spanish ship La Amistad, diverting the ship from its original destination of Cuba toward the Northeast. The Mende awaited trial in New Haven, where local communities offered housing and legal aid. Their case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that they could return to Sierra Leone as free men. 

An extensive Underground Railroad network ran through Connecticut. The historian Horatio Strother charted these routes in a 1962 book and identified 56 known Underground Railroad agents scattered across the state.

Mills and Morand also highlighted more subtle acts of resistance. You could see defiance in the rise of Black churches in the early 19th century, Morand said, or petitions made to the Connecticut state governor asking for freedom and the right to vote. You could see it in what he described as the “many, many, many, many, many, many, many” accounts in local newspapers calling for the capture of runaways. And you could see it in individuals such as the 26 New Haveners — then a tenth of the city’s enslaved population — who set sail for Long Island on a stolen boat before being recaptured in 1774.

Mills feels he has a duty to tell his family’s story and help other people descended from enslaved communities find theirs. He said he’s aware that, while the work he does hasn’t changed, perceptions of it have.

“It’s not just a historian doing history now,” he said. “If you’re an African American doing this type of history, you innately become an activist because certain people see you that way.”

Mills believes it’s “riskier” to do his job now. The second Trump administration has attempted to remove mentions of slavery from exhibitions and national parks to restore what the president called “truth and sanity to American history.” In response, a federal judge blocked the changes last Friday, arguing that the administration intended to “rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen.”

“I’d be doing this either way,” Mills said, referring to his work. “But I think it’s much more valuable to be done now.”