Unhired Hands: 18th Century Northern Slavery

Unhired Hands, presented by award-winning poet, actor, playwright David Mills, will explore the history of slavery in the North during the 18th century, through storytelling and poetry, on Sunday, February 1, 2026 at 3pm. The program takes place at Weston Public Library, 56 Norfield Road in Weston, CT. The event is FREE, but advanced registration is recommended.

This event is in honor of Black History Month and kicks-off the “America 250: The Revolutionary Spirit Lecture Series”, co-sponsored by the Friends of the Weston Public Library, The Weston History & Culture Center and the League of Women Voters of Weston, with financial support by the Weston America 250 Committee.

The Declaration of Independence was signed 250 years ago, declaring, “all men are created equal”, however that was not the case for many of the men and women of African and Indigenous descent in 1776. Unhired Hands, presented by David Mills, will explore the history of slavery in the North during the 18th century, interweaving poems with remarkable stories. Mills will introduce the audience to Millie Tunnell, who served George Washington and would become the oldest living woman in Queens, Onesimus, an African man enslaved by Puritan preacher Cotton Mather who would go on to help save the Massachusetts colony from smallpox, and Victoria Earle Matthews, an enslaved woman who became a celebrated writer and leader in the settlement movement.

Unhired Hands will remind us that this nation is built on the labor of remarkable people. Mills’ poems "travel from the plantations of the South to historic cemeteries of Queens," says Maple Grove Cemetery Historian Carl Ballenas, “unearthing slavery’s erasures with lyrical power.”