Royall House & Slave Quarters

When "A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts" by city archaeologist Joseph Bagley was first published, Boston Magazine shared this tantalizing preview: www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2015/11/24/boston-artifacts

"In 1898, as Boston’s black population moved to the South End and Roxbury, the 92-year-old African Meeting House was converted into a synagogue for the city’s burgeoning Jewish population. This page, ripped from a prayer book, was discovered in the walls of the main sanctuary. In 1972, the Museum of African American History - Boston and Nantucket acquired the property, now designated a National Historic Landmark."

From our friends at the Boston African American National Historic Site we learn that this excerpt is from Isaiah 30: 26-27: "And the light of the moon shall become like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall become sevenfold, like the light of the seven days, when the L-rd binds up His people’s wounds and heals the injuries it has suffered...."

"On December 6, 1865, nearly twelve months after President Lincoln had ceremoniously signed the document, Georgia became the 27th state to ratify the 13th Amendment. The three-quarters of the states needed to make the amendment law had finally been reached.

"On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William Seward announced to the world that the United States had constitutionally abolished slavery."

13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William Seward announced to the world that the United States had constitutionally abolished slavery — the 13th Amendment had been ratified.

Tomorrow evening, Wednesday, December 6th, 7-8:30pm EST, at the First Church in Roxbury or via Zoom; the program will also be recorded.

"As Boston reckons with its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, much of the recognition of this aspect of the city’s past has focused on historically white neighborhoods and places, from Old South Church in the Back Bay to Faneuil Hall across from Government Center.

"But new research by Harvard Ph.D. candidate Aabid Allibhai shows that slavery infiltrated all corners of Boston, including today’s mostly Black neighborhoods such as Roxbury.

"This final presentation in the Partnership of Historic Bostons series, Enslavement & Resistance: New England, 1620-1760, takes us up to date and asks: how, given these research findings, do we understand Boston's colonial past? What steps should the city take today? Aabid Allibhai is joined by former member of the Massachusetts legislature and lifelong activist Byron Rushing and the Rev. Mary Margaret Earl."

Race and Slavery at First Church in Roxbury How entwined was Boston's elite with slavery? Aabid Allibhai, Byron Rushing and the Rev. Mary Margaret Earl examine First Church Roxbury

"The newest exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum trains a bright light at Black figures — represented throughout the art historical canon — who because they are rarely identified by name, are simultaneously present and absent. Examining American folk art under a magnifying lens of race, the museum explores the stories of persons whose identities have been lost to history.

"A longstanding assumption — one centered around a whitewashed history of New England, is that there was no history of slavery in New England. One of the goals of the curatorial team was to counter that mythology by presenting in visual form that, in fact, quite the opposite was true."

“Unnamed Figures: Black Presence & Absence in the Early American North” is on view at the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan through March 24. It will subsequently be on view at Historic Deerfield from May 1-August 4.

American Folk Art Museum—Unnamed Figures: Black Presence & Absence In The Early American North - Antiques And The Arts Weekly NEW YORK CITY — The newest exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) trains a bright light at Black figures — represented throughout the art historical canon — who because they are rarely identified by name, are simultaneously present and absent. Examining American folk art under a mag...

On December 1, 1785, an elderly formerly enslaved woman "Received from Mr. Wm. Erving the Sum of two pounds two shillings [Sterling?] upon acc't of Mrs. Mary Erving."

The woman we now refer to as Belinda Sutton—the name she called herself in several petitions for a pension from the estate of Mary Erving's deceased father, Isaac Royall Jr.—was enslaved by the Royalls from her kidnapping as a girl in what is now Ghana in about 1725 until Royall's death in 1781.

In February 1783, in response to her petition, the Massachusetts legislature granted an annual pension of fifteen pounds twelve shillings to Belinda and her "more infirm daughter," to be paid from Royall's estate, which had been confiscated because of his allegiance to the British crown. At the time of the transfer shown here, more than two years later, she had received just one year's pension allocation.

In her fifth and final petition in 1793, Belinda Sutton notes that she had received only two payments of her annual pension in ten years, and "That upon her applying to Sir Wm Pepperell one of the Heirs of said Royal’s Estate, he has hitherto made her some allowances, but now refuses to allow her any more." Pepperrell was the widower of Isaac Royall's other daughter, Elizabeth. Belinda adds that "she is now much in debt, & being aged & infirm she cannot support herself by labour."

In 1799 his executors petitioned the legislature, reminding them that although most of Isaac Royall's estate had since been returned to his heirs, "a Sum of money however remained in the treasury of the commonwealth—intended to provide for the support of two family servants who were left behind & to prevent their becoming public incumbrances. As the last of said family servants is now dead," they asked that the balance revert to the family.

We assume Belinda Sutton was one of those two "servants," and wonder if her daughter was the other.

Sincere thanks to the Massachusetts Historical Society for saving this little treasure in their collection of David Greenough Papers 1631-1859.

We're honored that Kyera Singleton, our museum's executive director, will join playwright Ade Solanke and Boston Women's Memorial sculptor Meredith Bergmann, for this panel discussion. The event will end with a dramatic reading by Boston’s Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola of one of Phillis Wheatley’s poems, as well as her own work inspired by Phillis.

If you can't attend the live program at the library's Copley Square location next Monday, a recording will be available from December 6-13, but be sure to sign up for it now in the Eventbrite link.

Join Associates of the Boston Public Library for their 5th Pierce Performance, "Faces of Phillis!" on December 4th at 6pm at the Central Library! There will be a staged reading by Ade Solanke and a panel discussion! The event will celebrate the life and poetry of Phillis Wheatley Peters, the first published African American woman while enslaved in Boston.

Register for tickets to the free event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/faces-of-phillis-a-staged-reading-and-panel-discussion-tickets-759178743057?aff=BPL 🔗

“My work can’t be separated from craft. Because every time I’m weaving, every time I’m carving, every time I’m dyeing things, it is an act of reclamation of ancestral art forms.”

Last month North Bennet Street School's In the Making video series "hosted a virtual event with artist and arts educator Stephen Hamilton, in conversation with Ja’Hari Ortega JM ’24, In the Making Exhibition curatorial intern and NBSS Jewelry Making & Repair student.

"Stephen is an artist and arts educator living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. Stephen’s work incorporates both Western and African techniques, blending figurative painting and drawing with resist dyeing, weaving, and woodcarving. Each image is a marriage between the aesthetic perspectives and artistry of both traditions.

"They met at the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts, where Stephen recently completed his inaugural 'Reclaiming Our Hands' summer program—a paid art program for youth of African descent ages 14-19 to learn histories and techniques related to traditional African textiles, and their relationships with histories of slavery in the Americas. Stephen and Ja’Hari discussed Stephen’s body of work and his inspirations."

In the Making: Stephen Hamilton On Thursday, October 26, 2023, we hosted a virtual event with artist and arts educator Stephen Hamilton, in conversation with Ja’Hari Ortega JM ’24, In the M...

Historic newspapers can tell us a great deal about colonial New England. Even though much of their content focused on British, European, and imperial affairs, their advertisements are a source of insight into social history. As a family of wealth with extensive business interests, the Royalls not surprisingly figured quite frequently in the columns of small type dedicated to commerce in the Boston papers.

On November 22 and 29, 1756 (and twice more between then and the following April) Isaac Royall Jr. advertised in the Boston Evening-Post for a new tenant for a 300-acre farm in Medford that had been leased for more than 30 years to the Skinner family, who were now moving to a property they had purchased.

Royall listed the many attractions of the farm: It was conveniently located within within three miles of the Charlestown ferry, it boasted "choice good Land, Orchard, Pasturing, Mowing, Tillage and Salt Marsh, capable of keeping a large Stock the Year round, and compleatly wall'd and fenc'd in, with a large convenient Dwelling House and Dairy, two large Barns, Corn Crib, &c. all in right good Order and Repair."

Not until the last line did Royall add that he had "also a likely Negro Man to dispose of."

Earlier this month, Yale historian Ned Blackhawk's "The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History" won the 2023 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The judges wrote:

"Drawing on prodigious scholarship conducted over decades, Ned Blackhawk centers Indigenous people across a sweep of 500 years of United States history, reimagining and retelling familiar historical episodes from a new point of departure. In the process, Blackhawk 'rediscovers' America, guiding his readers to a novel understanding of our nation’s past and, hopefully, our collective future. This is an enlightening, transformative, and enduring work."

In April we posted renowned University of Virginia historian Alan Taylor's review of a the book, linked here, with this excerpt:

"'How can a nation founded on the homelands of dispossessed Indigenous peoples be the world’s most exemplary democracy?' This is the provocative question with which Ned Blackhawk opens his important new book, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. A historian at Yale and a member of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone, Blackhawk rejects the myth that Native Americans fell quick and easy victims to European invaders. Instead, he asserts that 'American Indians were central to every century of U.S. historical development.'

"More boldly still, he insists that 'Indigenous dispossession facilitated the growth of white male democracy and African American slavery' to constitute America’s historical trifecta of flaws. Built to serve and expand a settler society, the United States limited full citizenship to white men; helped them start new farms on lands taken from Indians; and protected their property rights, including their possession of enslaved people."

Retelling U.S. History With Native Americans at the Center (Gift Article) A new account by the Yale historian Ned Blackhawk argues that Native peoples shaped the development of American democracy while being dispossessed of their land.

From today's New York Times, this article explores the fight to preserve praise houses -- one-room structures used as places of worship by enslaved people on coastal plantations throughout the Carolinas and Georgia -- before they’re erased by sprawl, climate change, and fading memories.

Saving Praise Houses Before Their African Lineage Is Forgotten (Gift Article) The Gullah Geechee fight to preserve the tiny structures, a cradle of the Black church, before they’re erased by sprawl, climate change and fading memories.

Belinda Sutton's 3rd petition to the Massachusetts legislature was successful, as her first in 1783 had been. In November 1787 -- 4 years and 9 months after receiving the first payment of her "annual" pension from the estate of her former slaveholder -- she was awarded a second and final payment. Despite 6 petitions over 10 years, these two payments were all she received.

"Commonwealth of Massachusetts

The memorial of Belinda, an African, formerly a Servant to the late Isaac Royal Esq an Absentee
Humbly sheweth

That in the year 1783 she petitioned the General Court For a maintenance out of the income of the Said Royalls Estate, she being thro’ age & infirmity unable to Support Herself, & that the Hon. Court were pleased to pass the following Resolve in her favour, Dated Feb. 19. 1783

'Resolved that there be paid out of the Treasury of this Commonwealth, out of the Rents & Profits arising from The Estate of the late Isaac Royal Esq an Absentee Fifteen Pounds twelve Shillings per annum to Belinda an aged Servant to the late Isaac Royal Esq an Absentee, until the further Order of the Gen. Court, for reasons set forth in the said Belinda’s Petition.'

That your memorialist afterwards received out of the Treasury ₤15.12 for one year’s allowance, & no more & that she never could obtain any more to this day tho she often applied to the Governour & Council to grant her an Order upon the Treasurer for the same.

She is now advised to lay her distressed Case before your hon’rs, And she humbly prays that Y’r Hon’rs would be pleased to take her case into consideration & to grant that She may receive the annual pension made unto her as above mentioned, & your Memorialist as in duty bound shall ever pray."

[Signed with an X at “Belinda, her mark”]

Learn more at www.royallhouse.org/slavery/belinda-sutton-and-her-petitions and see the original at https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:48612852$1i

Yesterday we posted Medford-born abolitionist Lydia Maria Child's often-misquoted poem about Thanksgiving.

This remarkable evening star patterned cradle quilt, believed to have been sewn by Child and including another of her poems, was sold at an anti-slavery Christmas fair in Boston. It's part of Historic New England's extensive textile collection. More photos at https://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-search/?action=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.historicnewengland.org%2Fcollections-search&search=cradle+quilt&category=&preserve-filters=1

"The January 2, 1837, issue of The Liberator, Boston's abolitionist newspaper, described articles that had been for sale at a recent Anti-Slavery Fair. Included was a description of this quilt, 'made of patchwork in small stars' and a transcription of the poem in its center. The Anti-Slavery Fair, held in December 1836, was the third annual fair organized by the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, a group founded early in the 1830s to fight for immediate emancipation. Among this group's many activities was the organization of annual Anti-Slavery Fairs. The fairs were intended to raise awareness of the abolitionists' cause, but they also became astonishingly successful fund-raisers."

The hand-inked poem in the center square reads:

Mother! when around your child
You clasp your arms in love,
And when with grateful joy you raise
Your eyes to God above,-
Think of the negro mother, when
Her child is torn away,
Sold for a little slave - oh then
For that poor mother pray!

Finally, this fascinating short blog post describes the quilt's wealthy white abolitionist purchaser and his family's continued anti-slavery activism: https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-cradle-quilts-journey.html

Author and abolitionist Lydia Maria Child was born Lydia Francis in our museum's home community of Medford, Massachusetts, in 1802, the youngest of six children born to Convers and Susannah (Rand) Francis.

Her father produced the famous biscuits known as "Medford crackers" at his bakery next door to their home on the corner of Ashland and Salem Streets in Medford Square, shown here in a c. 1900 photo. The house was later the first home of the Medford Historical Society.

Lydia added the name Maria (pronounced Mariah) when she was rebaptized at age nineteen. In 1828 she married lawyer, newspaperman, and aspiring politician David Lee Child.

As the American National Biography article on her succinctly states, "While her diverting prose and light poetry made her famous, her unstinting support of abolitionism ultimately made her infamous."

Her best-known, though often misremembered, poem was first published in 1844.

The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day
BY LYDIA MARIA CHILD

Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house away!
We would not stop
For doll or top,
For 't is Thanksgiving day.

Over the river, and through the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood,
With a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark,
And children hark,
As we go jingling by.

Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play —
Hear the bells ring
Ting a ling ding,
Hurra for Thanksgiving day!

Over the river, and through the wood —
No matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get
The sleigh upset,
Into a bank of snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
To see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all,
And play snow-ball,
And stay as long as we can.

Over the river, and through the wood,
Trot fast, my dapple grey!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound,
For 't is Thanksgiving day!

Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate;
We seem to go
Extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait.

Over the river, and through the wood,
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his pow,
With a loud bow wow,
And thus the news he tells.

Over the river, and through the wood —
When grandmother sees us come,
She will say, Oh dear,
The children are here,
Bring a pie for every one.

Over the river, and through the wood —
Now grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurra for the fun!
Is the pudding done?

Hurra for the pumpkin pie!

"The thing is, we do not need the poisonous 'pilgrims and Indians' narrative. We do not need that illusion of past unity to actually unite people today. Instead, we can focus simply on values that apply to everybody: togetherness, generosity and gratitude. And we can make the day about what everybody wants to talk and think about anyway: the food.

"No matter where you are in North America, you are on indigenous land. And so on this holiday, and any day really, I urge people to explore a deeper connection to what are called 'American' foods by understanding true Native-American histories, and begin using what grows naturally around us, and to support Native-American growers. There is no need to make Thanksgiving about a false past. It is so much better when it celebrates the beauty of the present."

The Thanksgiving Tale Is a Harmful Lie. As a Native American, I’ve Found a Better Way to Celebrate With something we truly share (and would prefer to talk about anyway)

"Fretting over late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century immigration, American mythmakers discovered that the Pilgrims, and New England as a whole, were perfectly cast as national founders: white, Protestant, democratic, and blessed with an American character centered on family, work, individualism, freedom, and faith."

This important article from 2019 lays out many ways in which the story of the first Thanksgiving that most Americans grew up with gets almost everything wrong.

The Invention of Thanksgiving Massacres, myths, and the making of the great November holiday.

"Located only fifteen miles outside of Boston on the Charles River, Natick was the largest community of Native American converts to Christianity—or 'Praying Indians'—in mainland New England with a population exceeding two hundred persons" heading into the 18th century.

But "by the 1790s there were only twenty-some 'clear blooded' Indians in Natick. Historians have explained the 'disappearance of Natick’s Praying Indian community by arguing that a combination of war and disease placed many Praying Indians in debt and precipitated land sales."

"These explanations for Natick’s demise as an Indian community miss the impact of a major environmental change literally in the center of town. In 1738, colonists downstream in Watertown raised a dam several feet on the Charles River that blocked migrating sea-run fish. Spring fish runs were of vital importance to Natick. Native people depended on these fish for half their yearly supply of animal protein and were also an important fertilizer for New England’s notoriously thin soil."

Read more on how colonists used "water rights as a means to dispossess Indians from their land" in this 2019 essay by Zachary M. Bennett, now Assistant Professor of History at Vermont's Norwich University, for The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History.

Damming Fish and Indians: Starvation and Dispossession in Colonial Massachusetts Today’s post in the Roundtable on Food and Hunger in Vast Early America is by Zachary M. Bennett, who is Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Connecticut College this autumn. He is a Ph…

The latest episode of WGBH's Basic Black explores the life and legacy of poet Phillis Wheatley through the current premiere of the play "Phillis in Boston" at Revolutionary Spaces' Old South Meeting House. Our executive director, Kyera Singleton, is among the panelists in this half-hour video discussion.

"Phillis in Boston" will run through Sunday, December 3. Learn more and purchase tickets at https://revolutionaryspaces.org/explore/upcoming-programs/phillis-in-boston/

Unpacking Phillis Wheatley’s life as she’s brought to the stage A new play about Black poet and author Phillis Wheatley looks at her return from London 250 years ago.

Wamsutta (Frank) James came to "increasing prominence as a Wampanoag and Native American leader, but it was at the 1970 Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth that he fully embraced that role. James had been invited to speak at the gathering, a commemoration of the 350th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage and the founding of Plymouth colony. The organizers asked to see James’s speech before he delivered it, and when they read his impassioned and righteous critique of the Pilgrims and the treatment of the Wampanoag and Native Americans, they demanded that he revise the speech. Instead, on the night of the gathering James and a group of supporters walked to Plymouth’s Cole’s Hill, near the statue of the Wampanoag leader Ousamequin (also known as Massasoit). There James delivered the full text of his suppressed, stunning speech."

Considering History: Wamsutta James, Thanksgiving, and the National Day of Mourning | The Saturday Evening Post In 1970, activist Wamsutta James was forbidden from giving a fiery speech that reframed Thanksgiving from the Native American perspective. He gave it anyway and launched a movement that advocated a different point of view for this holiday.

"In August 1645, leading Salem, Massachusetts, resident and attorney Emmanuel Downing wrote to his brother-in-law and former Massachusetts governor John Winthrop about a war with the Narragansett Indians of modern Rhode Island. Concerned about the spiritual wellbeing of the young colony, Downing believed the conflict to be good and just. Waging war on those who 'maynteyne the wo[rshi]p of the devill' like the Narragansett would allow God to 'deliver' Indian captives 'into our hands.' These prisoners in turn could be exchanged for African slaves, which would be more useful than 'wee conceive.'"

This letter was written just 25 years after the Mayflower landed.

Historian Jared Hardesty talks more in the linked short excerpt from, and then talk at our museum that was based on, his book "Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England" about "the origins and nature of slavery in colonial New England. Colonial expansion depended on two interrelated factors: displacement of the indigenous population and labor. New England had cultivated connections with a source for slaves, while wars both displaced Indians, opening more land for settlement, and transformed humans into a good to be bought and sold."

Click the book's title above the video to go back to the book summary and read an excerpt from it.

Special thanks to GBH Forum Network for filming this talk on our site in November 2019.

Lecture from Jared Ross Hardesty, Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds | Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds | Manifold Scholarship GBH Forum presents a book talk from Hardesty, hosted by the Royall House and Slave Quarters in November 2019.

The Mystic River flows through Medford, Massachusetts, and is the main reason this community, just 5 miles upriver from Boston Harbor, was settled by Europeans as early as 1630.

This land's Indigenous inhabitants called the river Missituk, meaning "great tidal river." A local school that was originally called Mystic School, and later named after Christopher Columbus, was re-named Missituk Elementary School a few years ago.

The river was naturally tidal, making it ideal for shipbuilding. "Blessing of the Bay," the 2nd ocean-going non-fishing vessel built in the American colonies, was launched here in 1631, commissioned by the Massachusetts Bay colony's Gov. John Winthrop, and built on his land-grant property. Its purpose was trade throughout New England and as far as New Amsterdam, selling maple syrup, clapboards, and salt from sea water in exchange for spices and tea, and also sugar and molasses produced by enslaved people on British plantations in the West Indies.

The Mystic was serpentine before it was straightened and dammed in the modern era, with a significant oxbow adjacent to Winthrop's 600-acre Ten Hills Farm, later the Royall estate. The first of these photos is a map drawn in 1637 by a Winthrop family member, showing the river with its oxbow at the bottom.

Next is the plot plan drawn when Isaac Royall Sr. purchased the property a century later, oriented north-south and showing the oxbow to the right. Note the proposed canal across its mouth. The oxbow was referred to as "labor in vain" because of the long, slow sail it required. The completed canal was dubbed "labor no more."

Finally, just for fun, a view from Google Earth of the playground of Medford's McGlynn Elementary School, located adjacent to the present-day Mystic and roughly on the site of the oxbow. The current play surface shows the river's historic serpentine path, with a tree growing in the oxbow!

Medford recently announced exciting plans to replace this now-aging playground with one that's fully accessible for all kids. We're delighted with this news, but hope there's some way to continue to commemorate this historic geography.

Join us tomorrow evening for two short programs about social justice activism:

JUSTFLIX & SANKOFA VS. VERITAS
Thursday, November 16 -- 6:00-8:00 p.m.

JUSTFLIX
The Royall House and Slave Quarters is proud to present a screening of student work from the Medford Housing Authority's JustFlix program. Over the course of the year, the museum served as a partner and fiscal sponsor for this program, through which students learned about the history of slavery, national social justice movements, and local community activism. The screening showcases the short films students created about their ideas of justice in their communities and beyond, using their cellphones.

SANKOFA VS. VERITAS
After the students showcase their work, activist Tamara Lanier will give a talk on the role of social justice and community activism in the quest to preserve her own family’s history. Learn more about her work in this recent ProPublica article: https://www.propublica.org/article/harvard-photos-enslaved-people-tamara-lanier

This program will take place in the Slave Quarters at 15 George Street, Medford, Massachusetts. Pre-registration is not required.

"Arguably the first slave narrative by a woman, a petition was presented to the Massachusetts legislature on February 14, 1783, by Belinda, who for fifty years had been enslaved by the landowner and businessman Isaac Royall. Born around 1713, probably in what is now Ghana or Nigeria, kidnapped at age twelve, and transported to the New World, Belinda began working for Royall and his family after they moved to Massachusetts from Antigua in 1732."

The Library of America's latest Story of the Week features Belinda Sutton. Thanks to our friends at the Medford Historical Society & Museum for alerting us to this story.

The Petitions of Belinda an African Two petitions for reparations submitted to the Massachusetts legislature in 1783 and 1793 by the formerly enslaved Belinda Sutton.

"The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa, with roots that can be traced to the ancient city of Ile Ife in Nigeria. The slave trade spread their religion throughout the African diaspora, where it is recognized by a variety of names, including Candomblé in Brazil, Santería in Cuba and Vodou in Haiti.

"But according to 'Making the Gods in New York: The Yoruba Religion in the African American Community,' by Mary Cuthrell Curry, 'the religion ceased to exist' in the United States — if it had ever existed at all. That is, until Adefunmi I created a branch called Orisa-Vodun and the one-of-a-kind village in South Carolina that embodies it, Oyotunji."

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths went unreported in The New York Times. We are working with its author, Dionne Ford, to schedule a conversation about her remarkable new book, "Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing ," which describes her personal journey "to uncover the stories of her enslaved female ancestors, reclaim their power, and begin to heal." Watch this space for details.

Overlooked No More: Adefunmi I, Who Introduced African Americans to Yoruba (Gift Article) A pivotal conversation led him on a quest to understand African history and create a one-of-a-kind village for practitioners of the Yoruba religion.