MYSTIC — Years in the making, carefully developed and carefully curated, a unique and groundbreaking exhibit — now on view at the Mystic Seaport Museum, is attracting national attention.

And it’s not just because of the “Aboriginal Cooking Pot of c.500 BCE” on display, or because of the brightly colored hand-carved canoe that sits at the center of the exhibit; neither because of the first edition of the Eliot Bible from 1663 — translated into the Algonquin language — which is displayed behind glass, nor because of the rare wampum beads — discovered at the site of the Pequot massacre of 1637 — nor because of the impressive collection of paintings and sculptures. created by prominent contemporary Black and Indigenous artists such as Christian Gonçalves, Sherenté Mishitashin Harris, Sierra Henries, Gail “White Hair Smiling” Rokotuibau, Robin Spears and Felandes Thames.

“Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea,” which reimagines thousands of years of maritime history through the eyes of indigenous and black peoples across the region, is also groundbreaking because it is the first exhibition curated by Akeia by Barros Gomes, the museum’s senior curator of maritime social histories – and because it is the first-ever exhibition of its kind, created by a group of people not officially affiliated with the museum who are descendants of indigenous peoples and Africans who once inhabited the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

People from two cultures who in the past have been stripped of their history, a committee member said.

“Someone else was always telling our stories,” said committee member Anika Lopes, the Afro-Indigenous founder of Amherst, Mass.-based Ancestral Bridges, who can trace her ancestry back to African slaves and to members of the Niantic tribe. “We weren’t supposed to tell our own stories.”

For too long, she said, others have told America’s maritime history and left out important elements.

“The fact is, we were there,” Lopes said. “The full story cannot be told without us.”

“But Akeia broke the mold,” Lopes said in a phone conversation Friday afternoon. “She gave us authority and put our voices in control. I hope a lot of people learn from that.”

“The fact is, we are here now,” she added. “We are the bearers of culture and we bring archives to life.”

Bridget DeLaney-Hall, the museum’s associate curator of maritime social history, said the exhibition marks the first time the museum has “fully ceded our institutional voice,” and the first time an outside committee has been responsible for content. and the voice of maritime social history. exposure.

“It’s a special place,” she added as she walked through the exhibit, “and I’m so happy to be a part of it.”

“It’s an honor to be part of a project organized by so many people,” she added.

“Entwined” follows a three-year initiative designed to reexamine regional museum collections through a contemporary lens and supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, DeLaney-Hall said.

As a first step in creating the exhibit, she said, de Barros Gomes invited local tribal and black communities to think about how they would tell their maritime history.

“What came out of that conversation was the ocean as a place of creation and rebirth,” de Barros Gomes said in an interview with National Public Radio earlier this year.

“Akeia considers herself more of a facilitator,” DeLaney-Hall said one recent afternoon as she walked through the rooms of the building that houses the exhibit and sits on the Pequot grounds.

Committee member Steven Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, in the same interview with NPR earlier this year, said there was “a lot of healing that needed to take place for communities to feel comfortable to share in these spaces.”

“It needed to be the African and indigenous communities saying, ‘This is the story we want to tell,’” he said.

DeLaney-Hall said the exhibit invites visitors to think in new ways about history, water and spirituality.

“Walking through the exhibition space, you get the sense that time is cyclical and not linear,” de Barros Gomes told NPR. “And that everything is cyclical and has a birth, a life, a death and a rebirth, just like our stories.”

“Entwined” features goods or “objects” loaned by indigenous and African communities dating back 2,500 years, a time when sub-Saharan Africa and Dawn—the name for New England among the indigenous nations of the North— East – were centers of civilizations and flourishing civilizations. cultural diversity.

At this time, African societies were marked by advanced trading networks and the development of sophisticated art and craftsmanship. During this time, the indigenous communities of Dawnland maintained extensive trade networks as well as a deep connection to their environment.

They produced sophisticated artwork, spiritual objects, and tools that reflected their connections to nature. Overseas migration – both forced and, increasingly, in the era of whaling, free – brought people on the African coast into contact with the indigenous communities of New England.

“These encounters initiated a complex intersection of social identity and shared struggle linked to colonial displacement,” according to a museum statement, “but also a recognition of shared expertise in the navigation and use of the resources of the ocean”.

At the center of the exhibition is the life-size canoe commissioned by the museum and built in collaboration by four contemporary artists: two of African origin, Sika Foyer (Togo) and Alvin Ashiatey (Ghana); and two of Native American descent, Hartman Deetz (Mashpee Wampanoag) and Gary Carter Jr. (Mashantucket Pequot).

The canoe, which is both a traditional and contemporary work of art, was created in a “canoe” tradition, DeLaney-Hall said, a process by which wood is hollowed out by burning and then polished, which has was the way to shape canoes. for diverse African and indigenous communities for thousands of years.

The exhibit also features a replica of a colonial granary typical of where indigenous indentured servants and African slaves were forced to live.

One of the space’s signature objects is an 18th-century “nkisi bundle” — a collection of objects such as shells, beads and glass created to “bridge the gap between the physical world and the ancestors, maintain a connection to Africa and providing protection and healing” – originally discovered under a floorboard in the attic of the Wanton Lyman Hazard House, Newport’s oldest colonial house. It is the only example in New England that still survives.

“We feel fortunate to have received these items,” DeLaney-Hall said. “This is proof to the committee that we can be stewards.”

For too long, de Barros Gomes told NPR: others told America’s maritime history, she said. “Intertwined: Liberty, Sovereignty and the Sea” reverses the trend.

“Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea” will be on display at the Mystic Seaport Museum through spring 2026.

To learn more, visit