Theblack maritime tradition actually begins in Africa, and the exhibit featuresseveral artifacts reflecting that. Bruns points to a canoe that was manned byfour oarsmen. "It just shows that Africa had its own maritime traditionsand those traditions were transferred to America by the slaves, and many ofthose traditions were then transferred to American sailing traditions."
Agroup of middle school students from Brooklyn, New York, spent part of theirclass trip to Philadelphia touring the exhibit. Their teacher, Dane Martinez,says the school wanted the students to have a deeper understanding of theirheritage and culture. "We knew that it gave a fresh perspective on thecivil rights struggle for African Americans," he explains.
Philadelphiawas the hub of antislavery activity in the Americas in the 1700s and 1800s, andthe students toured parts of the , a network of secret routes and safe houses for fugitive slaves escaping tofreedom in the northern states. "We hear this is affectionately knownsometimes as the Underwater Railroad," Martinez adds, referring to theDelaware River, which runs past the Independence Seaport Museum and was used byrunaway slaves heading north.
"Ikind of always have felt that maritime and sailing and all of that was not ablack experience," she admits. She was surprised to learn that it was, andremains, a big part of African American history. The exhibit depicts thathistory through artwork, tools, music, photographs and historic documents.
Among those historic documents are maps of Africa. Chapin-McGill says she wasespecially struck by one map from 1747, during the slave-trading period, whichdepicts all the places slaves were taken from. "There was a huge part ofthe middle of the continent that had been named Negroland, and I have neverheard that, never seen that term before and that was just very striking tome."
Hismap and the rest of the exhibit began in ,on the Connecticut coast, and will be in Philadelphia for a year beforetraveling on to its next destination? continuing to cast light on an ignoredchapter of American history.