Interviewees:
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John Mills
- President, Alex Breanne Corporation
- Author of The Narrative of Primus
African Americans in Connecticut responded to the Declaration in multiple ways, all shaped by a clear recognition of its promises and contradictions. Syphax of Glastonbury enlisted in the Continental Army and negotiated a written contract with his enslaver surrendering his enlistment bounty in exchange for freedom after the conflict, an act of faith that the new nation would honor its promises. Others drew a different conclusion: when Lord Dunmore offered freedom for service to the Crown, roughly twenty thousand African Americans across the colonies accepted. Around 1776, Black Connecticans began taking names like Liberty, Freedom, and Freeman—a quiet declaration of their own. One enslaved man whose Loyalist enslaver had fled petitioned the General Assembly for his freedom and was granted it. Connecticut enacted a gradual emancipation law in 1784.
