Alumnus Shares Work on Venture Smith Project

Chandler Saint ’61, a historic preservationist, visited Westminster Oct. 28 to give a chapel talk about his Documenting Venture Smith Project and to share an exhibit titled “Making Freedom – The Life of Venture Smith: In His Own Voice” on display in the history wing of Armour Academic Center until Nov. 16.

 

Chandler began his talk by discussing his experiences as a student at Westminster. “My life here at Westminster impacted my eventual decision to commit my life’s work to social justice through preserving physical places and stories to tell history,” he said.

 

He shared how in the early 2000s he was asked to develop a program to save a number of buildings and home sites in Connecticut associated with former slave Venture Smith. “I saw that Venture Smith’s written narrative and the places he lived and worked offered a rare opportunity for us to take up the cause of racial equality.”

 

Chandler summarized the project by saying, “The exhibit in the history wing of Armour Academic Center and the story I am here to tell you about is the story of an African born in 1729 – enslaved – but one who died a free man in Connecticut in 1805. The story of Venture Smith is actually the much bigger and more important story of the continuing quest of equality for all.”

 

Chandler began work on the project 11 years ago in collaboration with Professor David Richardson, the founder and the first director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull in the U.K. “I save buildings and historical sites to tell our history, and I hope to use Venture’s story and these buildings to make some social change,” said Chandler.

 

Chandler described how Venture Smith is one of a very few survivors of the Middle Passage who left a written record and more physical places than any other survivor in the Western Hemisphere. “This narrative is the earliest known work of African-American literature,” he said. “His is the iconic story of Atlantic World slavery. He achieved the American Dream by becoming a self-made man and respected member of the elite in his community. He was brought to New England as a traded commodity, but he went on to free himself and his entire family and then helped found the country along with John Adams, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Except unlike the faces of the men we think of today as the founding fathers, Venture was a black man.”

 

Chandler concluded his talk by saying, “The experiences I had at Westminster, the teachers I worked with and my relationships with my classmates all helped to create the person I am today and the passion I have for this project. I have dedicated my life both to Venture Smith’s story and working to preserve the past.”

 

Following his chapel talk, Chandler visited students in their history classes and gave them a tour of the exhibit.

 

Chandler was involved in the republication of “A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture” and was a co-author of “Venture Smith: Making Freedom.” He has done extensive work researching the Middle Passage and the role Connecticut played in the commodification of Africans in the slave trade. He is trying to get Smith’s farms and tombstones declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 

 

History teacher and Assistant Head of School Kathleen Devaney P’19 arranged Chandler’s visit to campus.