Venture and Oliver Smith, from Owned and Owner to Freemen and Equals in Commerce in Revolutionary New England

One was born in Africa, son of a prince, captured, enslaved and transported to New England; the other born in Connecticut to an old and powerful family. In 1760 the recently married and new father Oliver Smith of Groton, Connecticut moved to Stonington Long Point to build his home and business. To do this he bought the over 30-year-old slave “Venture”, and agreed to allow him, over time, to purchase his freedom. This began a relationship that would last for over thirty years. What started out as a purchase of one man by another for the purpose of labor, transformed into a complex business and personal relationship that continued from one generation to the next in these two New England families. Many of their descendants still live in close proximity just a few miles from where the original two men achieved their individual freedoms from slavery--- one by purchasing himself from his owner; and the other, as a Colonel in the Continental Army, freeing himself from the Crown.