Around the Island

Manor to be featured in Smithsonian exhibit

COURTESY SYLVESTER MANOR | Dr. Rex Ellis, curator for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, takes a break to play the banjo with Sylvester Manor’s Bennett Konesni (right) before a brainstorming session at the manor earlier this month.

Historians, archaeologists and scholars gathered at Sylvester Manor on September 16 to plan an exhibit called “Slavery and Freedom,” according to a recent news release from the manor. The exhibit will be on permanent display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), the newest Smithsonian Museum to be opened near the Washington Monument on the National Mall. Groundbreaking is slated for 2012.

Sylvester Manor is the only intact 17th century plantation north of the Mason-Dixon Line, the release states.

The historic estate  was colonized by Nathaniel Sylvester and his partners in 1651. During its early history, the manor provisioned the Sylvester family’s sugar plantations in the West Indies, supplying livestock, timber and foodstuffs. When Nathaniel Sylvester died, he listed 24 slaves as part of his estate, the most of any New England family of his time. Slaves worked at the manor until just before slavery ended in New York in 1827.

The visiting team, led by Smithsonian curator Dr. Rex Ellis, toured Sylvester Manor and explored the stories of the manor’s slaves as recorded in family records and archaeological findings. Over 10,000 Sylvester family documents are being catalogued at New York University’s Fales Library, and thousands of artifacts are being analyzed at the University of Massachusetts; the artifacts were collected during archaeological digs from 1998 to 2007. Sylvester Manor’s slave stories and Shelter Island’s role in the triangle trade will be part of an exhibit area titled “Slavery at the Heart of a New Atlantic Economy.” The exhibit is expected to open in 2013.