STORRS Conn.
It takes many kinds of narrators to tell the full story of slave-turned-merchant Venture Smith historians and scientists to uncover the story, actors and poets to bring it to life, his many living descendants who recall the legends of their ancestor, and, of course, Smith himself, who dictated his autobiography.
Last fall, a diverse chorus of narrators visited the University of Connecticut to tell that story in what is believed to have been the first academic course devoted entirely to the study of a man who was born a West African prince but was kidnapped and sold into slavery, one of the hundreds of thousands of people who sailed the Middle Passage in chains and one of the few to record his story.
The freshman honors class used Smith, whose life and legacy are being dissected by an international community of scholars and scientists, to explore the meaning of identity from a scientific, legal, philosophical, historical and artistic viewpoint, said genetics Professor Rachel O'Neill.
"What makes us who we are? Our DNA? Our experiences? Our personal will? These are issues we talk about in the study of Venture Smith, but they are at the heart of our everyday lives, too," O'Neill said. "It is an especially timely debate for a group of freshmen, most of whom have just left home for the first time and are starting to wrestle with who they really are as individuals."
The 14 students enrolled in Genetic Legacies: A Connecticut Slave's Story, who included would-be science majors as well as those who dream of going into business or politics, learned about Smith and his descendants, the excavation of his Haddam Neck home and nearby grave and the genetic search for his long-lost African heritage.
Guest speakers ranged from State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni, who led the dig of Smith's East Haddam grave in search of any remaining DNA, to Linda Strausbaugh, the head of the UConn lab hunting for genetic clues to Smith's African origin, to Professor Jeffrey Ogbar, the director of UConn's Institute for African American Studies.
