“Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea” at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut explores Native American and African connections to New England’s waterways. The exhibition challenges visitors to think about history, water and spirituality in new ways.
““When you walk through the exhibition, you get the feeling that time is not linear, but cyclical. And that everything follows a cycle and has a birth, a life, a death and a rebirth, just like our history,” said curator Akeia de Barros Gomes.
There are borrowed “belongings” – or objects – from indigenous and African communities dating back 2,500 years, demonstrating maritime navigation skills and spiritual connections to the ocean on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Connecticut Public Radio
““Yes, colonialism, slavery and dispossession have been a major factor in our history over the last 500 years,” said de Barros Gomes. “But if you think about the history of seafaring in Africa and the indigenous peoples of Dawnland or New England, it goes back over 12,000 years.”
“Dawnland” is the indigenous term for New England.
The Mystic Seaport Museum was founded in 1929 to preserve America’s seafaring past. Visitors can walk through a 19th-century coastal village and board a wooden whaling ship. But for decades, most Black and Indigenous maritime history was missing. In the gallery space, de Barros Gomes points to an old ceramic cooking pot that is partially broken into pieces.
“We will continue working until the ship is whole and watertight again.”
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Connecticut Public Administration
The exhibit includes a brightly painted dugout canoe, traditional masks and jewelry, a first edition of the Eliot Bible translated into the Algonquian language, and wampum beads found across the river at the site of the Pequot massacre of 1637.
The Mystic Seaport Museum sits on Native American ancestral homeland, said designer Steven Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.
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Connecticut Public Administration
“A lot of healing had to happen for communities to feel comfortable sharing these spaces.”
Before the local tribes borrowed materials, they wanted to be sure that stories of strength and resilience would be featured alongside the tough history. Peters and de Barros Gomes spent nearly two years meeting with Indigenous and Black community members from across New England to shape the narrative.
“It had to be both African and indigenous communities saying, ‘This is the story we want to tell,'” he said.
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Connecticut Public Administration
This is not the first time Mystic Seaport has worked with outside consultants, says Elysa Engelman, the museum’s research and science director, “but it is the first time we have had an outside committee that was responsible for the content and really was the voice of the exhibition.”
Advisor Anika Lopes traces her ancestry back to enslaved Africans and members of the Niantic tribe.
“It always reminds me of your foundation, foundation, foundation,” she says. “It’s so important who’s at the table and who you include in the discussions from the beginning.”
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Connecticut Public Administration
Visitor Susie Gagne stood outside the gallery and said that “Entwined” made Mystic Seaport better. She appreciated the language of the exhibition.
“It was written largely from a ‘we’ and ‘I’ perspective; written by people from the groups it’s about. And of course, along with all the good historical connotations, Mystic also has historical atrocities associated with it.”
Back inside, de Barros Gomes walked through two smaller, darkened rooms. First, an attic filled with ship carvings and spiritual objects from enslaved Africans. Next, an indigenous hut called a wetu. And finally, he entered a bright, contemporary room with a large art collection by current Native American and black artists. There are paintings, sculptures and traditional clothing.
“Art that really speaks to contemporary artists and reconnects with their ancestors and their ancestral stories,” said de Barros Gomes.
For too long, others have told America’s maritime story, she said. “Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea” now brings about change.
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