Historical Bibliography for Researching African Americans in Early New England
Bolster, Jeffrey. Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997
Bontemps, Arna. Five Black Lives: The Autobiographies of Venture Smith, James Mars, William Grimes, The Rev. G. W. Offley, James L. Smith. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1971.
Brown, Barbara W. and James M. Rose. Black Roots in Southeastern Connecticut 1650-1900. New London, CT: The New London County Historical Society, 2001.
Cromwell, Adelaide M. The other Brahmins : Boston’s Black upper class, 1750-1950. Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press, 1994.
Dorman, Franklin A. Twenty Families of Color in Massachusetts 1742-1998. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1998.
Dresser, Thomas. African Americans on Martha’s Vineyard: From Enslavement to Presidential Visit. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
Greene, Lorenzo Johnston. The Negro in Colonial New England. New York: Atheneum, 1968.
Greenwood, Janette Thomas Greenwood. First Fruits of Freedom: The Migration of Former Slaves and their Search for Equality in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1862-1900. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Hayden Robert C. The African American Meeting House in Boston: A Celebration of History. Boston: Museum of Afro-American History, 1987.
Hayden, Robert C. African-Americans in Boston: More than 350 Years. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1991.
Hayden, Robert C. African-Americans on Martha’s Vineyard: A History of People and Events. Boston: Select Publications, 1999.
Herndon, Ruth Wallis. Unwelcome Americans: Living on the Margin in Early New England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 2001.
Horton, James Oliver. Black Bostonians: family life and community struggle in the antebellum North. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1999.
Horton, James Oliver and Lois E. Horton. In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Kaplan, Sidney. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989.
Karttunen, Frances Ruley. The Other Islanders: People Who Pulled Nantucket’s Oars. New Bedford, Mass: Spinner Publications, 2005.
Lee, Maureen Elgersman. Black Bangor: African Americans in a Maine community, 1880-1950. Durham, N.H.: University of New Hampshire Press, 2005.
Lemire, Elise V. Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
Manegold, C.S. Ten Hills Farm: The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Melish, Joanne Pope. Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780-1860. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Nell, William Cooper. The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution. Boston: Robert F. Wallcut, 1855. Available on Internet Archive – https://archive.org/details/coloredpatriotso00nell/page/n5/mode/2up
Normen, Elizabeth J. (editor). African American Connecticut Explored. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2013.
Piersen, William D. Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press: 1988.
Sammons, Mark and Valerie Cunningham. Black Portsmouth: Three Centuries of African-American Heritage. Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2004.
Secretary of the Commonwealth. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War. Boston: Wright & Potter Co,., State Printers, 1896. Available at Internet Archive – multiple volumes.
Sokolow, Michael. Charles Benson: Mariner of Color in the Age of Sail. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.