1738–1805: Venture Smith, born Broteer Furor in Africa, was enslaved as a child and transported from Anomabu on the Gold Coast to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1…

1738–1805: Venture Smith, born Broteer Furor in Africa, was enslaved as a child and transported from Anomabu on the Gold Coast to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1738. After being held by three successive American masters, he managed to purchase his freedom in 1765 through extraordinary industry and skill. In his life as a free man, he became a successful landowner and trader in Connecticut, establishing a family dynasty that persists into the present day. His life story was preserved in a narrative published in 1798, and his burial in East Haddam in 1805 left behind one of the few surviving gravestones of an African-born individual in the Americas.