Black Roots on a Brooklyn Farm, Lefferts Homestead Childrens Museum

In honor of Juneteenth, I wanted to share this very special painting that I created for the Lefferts Homestead Children’s Museum in 1990. The painting was commissioned for a show, Black Roots on a Brooklyn Farm. The show was about the history of slavery on a farm owned by Pieter Lefferts during the time of the American Revolution. The historians I worked with made sure that every little detail in my painting was historically correct. The story of slavery in the 1780’s in Brooklyn, was documented in a first hand account, The Social History of Flatbush, 1882, by Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt. This story has intrigued me since I created the painting as a young artist. Early on, I proposed a children’s book based on the ideas of that show. Since then, my story has gone through so many iterations, sadly it has not yet been published. I am still shocked that slavery existed in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn in the early 1800’s. I wanted to write the story through the eyes of one of the slaves, Cato, and I remember feeling very uncomfortable because I felt like it was not my story to tell, so I chose a different story, the story of the little girl who lived in the house and how the Colonists were able to retreat from the Hessian soldiers to the hills of NJ. The Colonists did not win the battle, but their withdrawal enabled the Revolutionary War to continue and as we all know, the Colonists finally did win. This story has nagged me on again, off again for years, maybe it is finally ready to be told. (Anyone with thoughts or ideas about this or if you want to see more of the artwork or learn more about the history, please pm me.) Please see more on my website: http://loriloebelsohn.com/lefferts-homestead-overmantle/