Indigenous and Black people tell their own stories at the Mystic Seaport Museum

Connecticut Public Radio | By Diane Orson

Published August 23, 2024 at 6:41 AM CDT

“Wail on Whalers, a Portrait of Amos Haskins” by Felandus Thames, an “homage to escaped enslaved people who found autonomy in whaling,” is comprised of hairbeads strung on coated wire. The piece is part of the “Entwined” exhibition, which reimagines thousands of years of maritime history through Black and Indigenous worldviews and experiences. (Ryan Caron King/Connecticut Public)

“Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea” at Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut explores Indigenous and African ties to the waterways of New England. The exhibition calls on visitors to think about history, water and spirituality in new ways.

“Walking through the exhibition space you get the sense that time is cyclical, not linear. And that everything cycles and has a birth, a life, a death and a rebirth, as do our histories,” said curator Akeia de Barros Gomes.

There are loaned "belongings" — or objects — from Indigenous and African communities dating back 2500 years. They show maritime navigational skills and spiritual connections to the ocean on both sides of the Atlantic.

Senior Curator of Maritime Social Histories Akeia de Barros Gomes said a first step in creating the 'Entwined' exhibition was to ask local tribal and Black communities how they would tell their maritime history. “What came from that conversation was the ocean as a place of creation and rebirth,” she said.

“Yes, for the last 500 years, colonialism, slavery and dispossession have been a major factor in our histories," de Barros Gomes said. “But if you think about African and Indigenous Dawnland, or New England, maritime histories, they go back over 12,000 years.”

"Dawnland" is the Indigenous term for New England.

Mystic Seaport Museum was founded in 1929 to preserve America’s seafaring past. Visitors can walk through a 19th-century coastal village and climb aboard a wooden whaling ship. But for decades, most Black and Indigenous maritime histories were missing. Inside the gallery space, de Barros Gomes points to an ancient ceramic cooking pot that’s partly broken in pieces.

"We are going to continue to do the work until the vessel is whole and holds water once more."

“Drums from All Directions” is a piece created by Sherenté Mishitashin Harris of the Narragansett tribe. It sits on display as part of the “Entwined” exhibition.

The exhibition includes a brightly painted dugout canoe, traditional masks and jewelry, and a first edition Eliot Bible translated into the Algonquin language. There are also wampum beads found just across the river at the site of the Pequot Massacre of 1637.

Mystic Seaport Museum stands on Indigenous ancestral homelands, said designer Steven Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.

Believed to be the first translation of a Christian bible into an indigenous language is on display in the “Entwined” exhibition at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut.

“There was a lot of healing that had to take place so that the communities became comfortable sharing within those spaces.”

Before loaning any materials, local tribes wanted to be sure that along with the hard history there would be stories of strength and resilience. Peters and de Barros Gomes spent nearly two years meeting with Native and Black community members from around New England to shape the narrative.

“It had to be both African and Indigenous communities that were saying, ‘Here’s the story that we want to tell,'" he said.

Director of Research and Scholarship Elysa Engelman said she hopes that visitors can gain a new perspective from the exhibition. “I think, like with reading, like with movies, one of the powers of museums is to transport you outside of your own experience.”

This is not the first time Mystic Seaport has worked with outside advisers, says Elysa Engelman, the museum’s Director of Research and Scholarship, “but (it's) the first time that we’ve had an outside committee that was responsible for the content and really was the voice of the exhibit.”

Advisor Anika Lopes traces her ancestry to enslaved Africans and members of the Niantic tribe.

“It reminds me always of your foundation, foundation, foundation," she says. "Like, who is at the table and who are you involving in the discussions from the very beginning is so important.”

Anika Lopes is an Afro-Indigenous woman who was a member of the committee that helped to shape the narrative of ''Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea." To create it, the curator and designer asked Indigenous and Black communities in New England (or the "Dawnland") how their ancestors would have wanted their history and stories to be told? The exhibition runs through spring of 2026.

Standing outside the gallery, visitor Susie Gagne said ‘Entwined’ makes Mystic Seaport better. She appreciated the language of the exhibition.

“It was for the most part written in like, ‘we’ and ‘I’ perspectives; written by people in the groups that it’s about. And obviously there are historical atrocities associated with Mystic alongside all of the good historical connotations.”

Back inside, de Barros Gomes walked through two smaller darkened rooms. First, an attic space with ship carvings and spiritual objects of enslaved Africans. Next, an Indigenous hut called a Wetu. And finally, into a light, bright contemporary space with a large collection of art by current Native American and Black artists. There are paintings, sculpture, and traditional clothing.

“Art that really speaks to contemporary artists reclaiming their ancestry and their ancestral stories,” said de Barros Gomes.

For too long, others told America’s maritime history, she said. ‘Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea’ shifts the tide.