Discovering Black Vermont

Discovering Black Vermont by Elise A. Guyette tells the story of three generations of free African Americans trying to build a life and community in northern Vermont in the years following statehood. By piecing together fragments of the history of free black Americans in Vermont—tax and estate records, journals, diaries, and the like—the author recovers what is essentially a lost world, establishing a framework for using primary sources to document a forgotten past. The book is an invaluable resource for those conducting local history research and will serve as inspiration for high school and college students and their teachers. Originally published in 2010 by the University of Vermont and University Press of New England, it has been reprinted in 2020 by the Vermont Historical Society.