From Slavery to Freedom: One Family’s Story

Journey’s End. The Turner farm in Grafton, VT. Courtesy, Vermont Folklife Center.

The story of Turner family begins in Africa and continues to this day in Vermont. Through one family’s story, it is possible help students understand the enduring impacts of slavery and grasp the rich cultural traditions preserved and shared through Daisy Turner’s stories.

“This thing is in me. If I just had read it, it would be a different story. But I’ve lived it.”

This website includes lessons and activities connected to 4 key ideas:

Enslaved people were human beings with aspirations, dreams, fears, and families. They resisted their enslavement in small and large ways.

Slavery was an institution designed to create profit for enslavers. Enslaved people were viewed as property and provided their masters with great wealth.

Systemic racism is a foundation of American society. Throughout history Black Vermonters have faced bias and discrimination, and this is still true today.

After slavery, freed people worked to maintain their cultural traditions and create new futures for their families. Stories of enslaved people live on through their descendants.

The Turner Family

The Turner family’s extraordinary story began in West Africa. As the story goes, sometime around the year 1800, the young daughter of a London merchant was accompanying her husband on a voyage when their ship was wrecked by a storm in the Bight of Benin, off the coast of what are now the countries of Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. She was rescued by the son of a local chief, and eventually bore a son with him named Alessi. As an enterprising young man of high social standing, Alessi was involved in commerce, trading both legitimate goods and slaves with other local traders and with Europeans. Around 1830 Alessi was himself captured by an English merchant and sold as a slave in New Orleans—illegally because the slave trade had been outlawed by England in 1807 and by the United States in 1808. Later Alessi was purchased by John (Jack) Gouldin of Caroline County, Virginia.

Alessi married a part-Cherokee woman named Rose, and their son Alexander, or Alec, was born in 1845. In 1862, during the Civil War, Alec escaped from the Gouldin plantation and joined up with the Union Army. At that time he took the last name Turner so Gouldin couldn’t claim him.

Alexander Turner, Daisy Turner’s father, ca. 1915. Courtesy, Grafton Historical Society.

Alec attended school in New Jersey, found work as a laborer, married young Sally Early, and was hired to work in a slate quarry in Maine. While in Boston because Sally needed medical attention, Alec learned of an opportunity to work for a sawmill and logging operation as a woodchopper, and in late 1873 he relocated to Grafton, Vermont, followed by Sally and three small children in June 1874.

Daisy Turner, ca. 1920. Courtesy, Vermont Folklife Center.

Daisy Turner was born to Sally and Alec in 1883. She lived most of her life in Grafton and died in 1988 at the age of 104. In her later years Daisy became a renowned storyteller and much of what we know about the Turner family stems from her reminiscences and oral histories she told to folklorist Jane Beck, which Beck analyzed, corroborated, and contextualized in her book, Daisy Turner’s Kin: An African American Family Saga (2015).

Go to the Turner Family Timeline

The Lessons

People, Not Numbers

Enslaved people were human beings with aspirations, dreams, fears, and families. They constantly resisted their enslavement in small and large ways.

Lesson: The Turner Family: Resisting Slavery

Story: The Blood-Stained Primer

The Business of Slavery

Slavery was an institution designed to create profit for enslavers. Enslaved people were viewed as property and provided their masters with great wealth.

Lesson: The Turner Family: The Business of Slavery

Story: Young Alec and his Red Moccasins

Race & Implicit Bias

Systemic racism is a foundation of American society. Throughout history Black Vermonters have faced bias and discrimination, and this is still true today.

Lesson: The Turner Family: Encountering Implicit Bias

Story: Daisy’s Black Doll

Building New Lives