The Prince Project is happy to announce that its long-awaited Enslavement In Maine Database is now up and running!
Go to princeproject.org and click on “Database”
The Prince Project database contains information about over two thousand people who were enslaved, or descended from enslaved people, and lived here in Maine in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is searchable by a variety of criteria: the names of the enslaved, those of their enslavers, or the town where they lived.
The Prince Project has been working for the last year with NESRI (Northeast Slavery Records Index at CUNY) to get our database online and available to all. We are grateful for their support.
Almost twelve years in the making, The Prince Project’s goal has been to uncover and record the names and stories of as many individuals of African descent as possible who lived in Maine during the early years of European colonization. It is imperative that these people be recognized and remembered for their contributions to our State and our country. Though their labor helped to make Maine what it is today, for far too long these men, women, and children were erased from our history. To this day, many remain nameless. Little has been written about these members of our communities and what they experienced here in what is now Maine.
The Prince Project Database aspires to be a central repository for all those seeking more information on our State’s Black history. It is also an excellent resource for those researching genealogy.
Education is The Prince Project’s primary mission. We believe it is critical that the present and future generations of residents in our State have an expanded and more accurate knowledge of our history. The database contributes to that.
The Prince Project began in May 2013 when the founder, Vana Carmona, discovered the gravestone of a man named Prince near her family plot in Eastern Cemetery in Gorham, Maine. Vana learned that Prince had been enslaved by her own ancestors.
Enslavement in Maine had never been addressed—not within Vana’s family and not in any of the local schools she had attended. Vana found this silence very disturbing. Immediately she set to work to identify other individuals who had been enslaved here in Maine, and to re-educate herself.
Within a short time, Vana realized that slavery in Maine was far more prevalent than she had ever imagined. Over the following years as she gathered information, what she had originally thought would be a couple dozen names ballooned into what it is today 2,000 and growing.
The research will never be done. We realize that for every person we find, there may be many others that are still lost to history.
Our ultimate dream is that everyone will get involved and contribute even more information to the database. Please share the news — and share your own stories with us.
Our collective effort will bring Maine’s African-heritage people back to the forefront — for all of us.
To contact The Prince Project to add your data, please email: info@princeproject.org
To access The Prince Project database, go to princeproject.org and click on “Database.”
