Today’s Star is the last edition during Black History Month, for which I normally write several articles related to what I have learned about East Hampton’s long relationship with slavery. This year, however, I have been occupied by preparing for a related exhibit at the Sag Harbor Cinema, intended to reach a broader audience. There is a documentary film, too.
Saturday’s first public screening of “Forgotten Founders: David Hempstead, Senior” is about an effort by the Sag Harbor painter Michael A. Butler, Donnamarie Barnes, the director of history and heritage at Sylvester Manor, and me to describe the life of a man born enslaved who became a landowner and community leader in freedom and provide context about the 180-year span of enslavement on eastern Long Island. Sam Hamilton and Julian Alvarez are the filmmakers.
All the tickets to the 5 p.m. Saturday premiere at the Sag Harbor Cinema were just about sold out as of the beginning of this week; there will be at least one additional showing to be announced. The exhibit, on the cinema’s third floor, can be visited, however, when the cinema is open, generally from 5 to 10 p.m., with some afternoon hours during afternoon films.
Preparing wall panels for the exhibit has occupied much of the last month for me. There are two main themes running throughout, David Hempstead’s story and the much larger story of enslavement locally, as well as the vast web of trade that tied the East End to the global economic forces of the time. New England and, really, all of British North America depended on supplying the sugar-producing West Indies. When it made more financial sense to have an enslaved population growing and processing sugarcane, food had to come from somewhere and that somewhere often was Long Island.
Our region sent timber to build sugar mills. Livestock, salted fish, and the all-important barrels used to transport raw sugar came from here, too. Even the smallest-scale farmer could be tied to slavery on the sugar islands, selling a bushel of corn or rye to be taken aboard ships for the voyage south.
All of this has come to light only recently. Though academic historians have done fine work on the subject of the North and slavery, little has trickled out to the general public. Our film and the exhibit, as well as an educational component to be offered to schools across New York State, aim to correct that.