(Continued from Venture Smith Day 2025.)

At both sites, the houses were small and simple in construction. Compared to the house lots of Venture Smith and their white neighbors, Peter and Whacket’s material goods were quite sparse.

Virtually all of the artifacts were either nails or ceramic fragments, and the majority of the tableware was inexpensive, locally made ceramics. They suggest occupation by persons of lower social and economic standing, which accords with Peter and Whacket’s status as former slaves only recently freed.

The men were likely attempting to emulate the success of Venture Smith in lumbering and fishing. Their relatively brief use of the property shows that they were unable to do so. Both men died while still in their forties, which suggests that poor health was a major factor in their failure to achieve.

Peter and Whacket’s home lots are significant archaeology sites because they are rare examples of 18th century black rural homesteads…two families representing that group of marginalized peoples in the lower Connecticut River Valley that are rarely mentioned in local town histories.

Additionally, both men were contemporaries of Venture Smith. Comparisons of their small households with the size, numerous buildings, and many artifacts from Venture’s family
compound demonstrate a degree of social and economic diversity within the local 18th century black community. Future research on 18th and early 19th century black homesteads has the potential to provide additional information on this diversity, and on the archaeological identification of ethnicity.

On to Venture’s part in this saga. He provided Peter and Whacket with land very much like his original 10 acre parcel in size and physical features. As we all know, Venture’s success in exploiting the resources on that parcel allowed him to expand his holdings and eventually achieve a most respectable social and economic status in East Haddam society. He obviously
assumed that Peter and Whacket would do the same. In other words, this is another example of Venture trying to help members of the local black community raise themselves out of the poverty and low social status in which freed slaves often found themselves. Other examples are recorded in his autobiography, in which he refers to the black community as his “own countrymen” and to himself as an “African” (Smith 1797). All of which show that Venture continued to see himself as an African prince, obligated to helping his countrymen by distributing his wealth and expertise.

And that is why Peter and Whacket are important to Venture Smith Day.

Peter Freeman and Whacket Freeman: Towards an Archaeology of 18th Century Black Homesteads

Lucianne Lavin, Ph.D.
Institute for American Indian Studies (Editor’s note: Lavin is Director Emerita of Research and Collections at the Institute for American Indian Studies, a museum, research and educational center in Washington, CT, a position she held for 18 years. She is a founding member of the Native American Heritage Advisory Council (a government agency whose appointed members advise the Office of State Archaeology and State Historic Preservation Office on Indigenous sacred sites), and retired Editor of the journal of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut, a position she held for 30 years. Dr. Lavin is an anthropologist & archaeologist with over 50 years of research and field experience in Northeastern archaeology and anthropology, including teaching, museum exhibits and curatorial work, cultural resource management, editorial work, and public relations. for more, see https://independent.academia.edu/LucianneLavin. .)

Paper presented at Venture Smith Day, First Church of Christ, Congregational in East Haddam, CT; September 15, 2012.

Note: For more of her work/books: https://blackstonebookstore.com/search?type=author&q=Lavin%2C%20Lucianne or search online. Fascinating. Also search YouTube.