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Thomas Commeraw, Free Black Potter in 1800s New York
27 Plays2 years ago
For nearly two hundred years, from his death in 1823, New York potter Thomas Commeraw was out of sight. In 2010 it finally became possible to positively identify him: as a prosperous free Black craftsman with a manufactory in Corlears Hook employing seven people, an enterprise that provided stiff competition to the legacy affairs of Pot Baker’s Hill in lower Manhattan.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Curious Objects'
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:15
Speaker
I've said before on this show that while the stories we tell about history can be flawed and distorted, objects don't lie.
00:00:23
Speaker
But objects can be misunderstood.
00:00:26
Speaker
What a piece was used for, where it came from, who it belonged to, and who made it is all subject to everything from outright deception to misinterpretations and mistaken assumptions.
Discovery of Thomas W. Camara's True Identity
00:00:38
Speaker
Now, as we publish this episode, there's an exhibition at the New York Historical Society on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which is about perhaps the most extraordinary case of mistaken identity in the history of American decorative arts.
00:00:53
Speaker
The show is called Crafting Freedom, the Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Camara, and it runs through May 28th.
00:01:03
Speaker
For most of the 200 years since his death, Camara was thought to be a Frenchman.
00:01:08
Speaker
making pottery out of his business here in New York City in the early 19th century.
00:01:13
Speaker
It wasn't until 2010 that the world learned that he wasn't French after all.
00:01:18
Speaker
In fact, Kamara wasn't even white.
00:01:21
Speaker
He was a free black man, plying his trade in spite of the tremendous adversity facing black craftspeople at the time.
00:01:29
Speaker
And he was much more than just a crafts person.
00:01:31
Speaker
Kamara was politically active and even traveled to Africa, all of which we're going to explore today.
Exhibition 'Crafting Freedom' and Camara's Techniques
00:01:39
Speaker
And I'm thrilled to be able to talk about Kamara and about this exhibition with someone you've heard on Curious Objects before, Alison Robinson.
00:01:48
Speaker
Back in 2021, she came on to talk with me about her work on children's dolls produced by the WPA, which is still one of my favorite episodes.
00:01:59
Speaker
So, Allison, I couldn't be happier to have you back.
00:02:02
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me, Ben.
00:02:03
Speaker
I'm so excited to talk about Thomas Comerat and about the show Crafting Freedom.
00:02:09
Speaker
Excellent.
00:02:09
Speaker
Me too.
00:02:10
Speaker
So yeah, there were, I just want to start by saying there were a lot of potters in 19th century New York City.
00:02:16
Speaker
But, you know, Kamara was a noted maker even before we knew about his African descent.
00:02:24
Speaker
What is it that sets his work apart?
00:02:26
Speaker
Kamara is a special stoneware potter in the late 1790s and early 1800s because he's using traditional Germanic techniques to make his stoneware, but decorating them in a way that draws directly from neoclassical and federal high style American decorative arts.
00:02:51
Speaker
So we see in the span of his works that he's making jars and jugs that have a very practical purpose.
00:03:00
Speaker
They're stoneware, so they're fired at a very high temperature.
00:03:04
Speaker
They have this beautiful salt glaze that gives it that really delightful orange peel texture to it.
00:03:11
Speaker
And we say in the show and in our tours that these objects, they're utilitarian.
00:03:18
Speaker
They're kind of akin to the Tupperware of the period.
00:03:22
Speaker
But to set himself apart from his competitors, Comrade is using the swags and the tassels that you would have seen in furniture, in architecture at the turn of the American Revolution to make himself distinct in a field that's largely decorated using floral motifs that are more popular and common in stoneware in this period.
00:03:52
Speaker
I love the Tupperware comparison.
00:03:55
Speaker
I mean, what kinds of objects was he making?
Camara's Pottery Forms and Marketing Strategies
00:03:58
Speaker
What forms was he putting out?
00:04:01
Speaker
This is, in truth, a little bit of the mystery of Thomas Comra.
00:04:06
Speaker
Of course, we only have the ones that have survived up until this point.
00:04:12
Speaker
But
00:04:13
Speaker
Of what has survived, we do know that he was making spectacularly large vessels, which would have been used to hold foods in bulk, such as grains or large amounts of liquids, such as beer and cider.
00:04:29
Speaker
We know from surviving documents that in order to compete in this market, he would have also made much smaller jars, maybe even inkwells.
00:04:41
Speaker
And one of my favorite forms in the show are these set of three oyster jars.
00:04:49
Speaker
Comra, he had a number of motifs that he used to set himself apart in this field, up to including putting his name and location onto his vessels.
00:05:01
Speaker
It's really special to see how he's using these same marketing techniques of putting a black entrepreneur's name and where the customer can find them right on the front of the jar.
00:05:14
Speaker
And so he's making these cylindrical jars that are, they're not too big, but they're hollow on the inside, of course.
00:05:24
Speaker
They're designed essentially to hold
00:05:29
Speaker
Oysters that have been pickled, sealed on the top, and piled together in shipping containers to be sent, now we know, as close as New York City and as far as Europe and South America.
00:05:41
Speaker
And so he's taking, again, these very practical jars, but reimagining how they can be decorated to support the Black entrepreneurial community, and in this case, Black oystermen.
00:05:54
Speaker
So you've told us about at least one use that these pieces were being put to, but who were his customers?
00:06:01
Speaker
I mean, who was he selling to and what were they doing with these vessels?
00:06:04
Speaker
He would have had a real range of customers.
00:06:08
Speaker
More likely than not, he would have sold them wholesale to a third party.
00:06:15
Speaker
But these...
00:06:17
Speaker
Customers would have really run the gamut from individuals using them for storage in their own homes to boarding houses and restaurants.
00:06:29
Speaker
We actually have, I'm so excited to share this, we have a shard of comrade stoneware that was found in an archaeological dig in Lower Manhattan.
00:06:42
Speaker
And documentary research on this site in Pearl Street later revealed that it was, in fact, a boarding house that was operated by two women who were both active at the same time where Comrade was running his business between 1799 and 1820.
00:07:02
Speaker
So Kamra is really has his fingers in many different areas of the New York entrepreneurial world, of domestic spaces in New York and really changing the game, so to speak, in terms of how people are decorating their stoneware in all of these spaces.
00:07:27
Speaker
That's so interesting to be able to draw a direct connection based on a shard between his workshop and a place where it was actually in use.
00:07:36
Speaker
So speaking of geography, where was Kamra's shop located?
Camara's Entrepreneurial Spirit
00:07:42
Speaker
This is another way in which Kamara really set himself apart from all of his competitors.
00:07:50
Speaker
The New York stoneware industry, for the most part, was based in Lower Manhattan in a site called Potbakers Hill.
00:07:58
Speaker
It's around where City Hall is today.
00:08:02
Speaker
We know from documentary evidence, starting with directory records in 1795, that this is in fact where Comorat is getting his start.
00:08:12
Speaker
He lives nearby.
00:08:13
Speaker
He must be working at Potbakers Hill as a potter in this period.
00:08:19
Speaker
In 1797, he does something so bold that I would highly encourage everyone to look at a map of this afterwards.
00:08:29
Speaker
He moves all the way to the Lower East Side and starts his own business in Corlears Hook.
00:08:37
Speaker
This new location was one that was...
00:08:41
Speaker
Kind of picturesque when you look at paintings of the 1790s.
00:08:44
Speaker
It was more bucolic, certainly, than people really imagine it to be.
00:08:50
Speaker
But he would have been close to docks and shipping, which would have made it easier perhaps to...
00:08:59
Speaker
transport his wares or bring in clays from New Jersey.
00:09:03
Speaker
Moving so far away would have also been a really interesting opportunity for a free Black man who's married at this point to bring and raise his family.
00:09:14
Speaker
And it's also so striking because we know by 1799 that he's actually being taxed on his business and his stoneware manufacturing in this area.
00:09:26
Speaker
So not only has he
00:09:27
Speaker
physically distanced himself from his competitors.
00:09:30
Speaker
He's really one of the first people to help turn Corlears Hook into what would later become a real hotbed of entrepreneurial action.
00:09:39
Speaker
So what did that shop actually look like?
00:09:42
Speaker
I mean, what sorts of equipment was he using?
00:09:46
Speaker
Was he also living in the same location?
00:09:50
Speaker
He would have been living in the same location, and we have little clues of what the shop would have looked like left behind, both by Kamara himself and from artistic renderings of what Potter shops looked like at the time period.
00:10:08
Speaker
In Crafting Freedom, we have this really striking engraving that's all the way in the back of the gallery showing how a potter shop, a small-scale one, would have been organized in the time period.
00:10:21
Speaker
You see a man standing at a wheel turning a pot, and in the back left corner of this image, we see a kiln.
00:10:32
Speaker
Now, because of the documentary evidence, we do know that Kamara would have owned and operated his own kiln at the same time, which is owning your own business is an accomplishment for anyone in this period, even more so for an African-American entrepreneur who would have had to jump over additional hurdles to accomplish this.
00:10:56
Speaker
So we know there would have been a pottery with a kiln attached.
00:11:00
Speaker
There would have been a wheel.
00:11:03
Speaker
comrade if you look closely at his jars you'll notice that the early ones are incised by hand but later ones with the swags and the tassels are actually stamped so there would have been a collection of decorative stamps with his signature motifs his the name of his business comrade stoneware and the location courlier's hook
00:11:29
Speaker
Finally, the number of people who would have worked for him is a little bit of a mystery, but there is one clue that we put right at the front of the gallery.
00:11:39
Speaker
The 1800 census that Brant Sitt found also lists seven people in Kamara's household that he's not related to.
00:11:47
Speaker
And so we believe that these individuals might have been there helping him run his business and
00:11:55
Speaker
performing labor from perhaps turning pots all the way to decorating them with stamps or applying the cobalt blue.
00:12:04
Speaker
So we're going to get back to that census record a little bit later, but that's so interesting that, I mean, it's painting a picture of really what sounds like quite a bustling location.
00:12:15
Speaker
I mean, this is not the Lower East Side of the early 20th century, of course, but you talked about his entrepreneurial instincts and starting to convert this neighborhood into a commercial and industrial center.
Camara's Stance on Anti-Slavery Practices
00:12:34
Speaker
You've described how his pots in some ways were unique and distinguished themselves from pots being produced by other makers of the time.
00:12:46
Speaker
But how else might his business have looked different or acted differently from some of the other potters of the period in New York, particularly his white competitors?
00:12:58
Speaker
This is a really wonderful question and one that leads in really beautifully to Kamra's both past and his political work as well.
00:13:09
Speaker
At least two of Kamra's competitors, both multi-generational stoneware families who were in the business before he joined and were able to survive the War of 1812 afterwards, which was economically devastating for a lot of people, including Kamra.
00:13:28
Speaker
A number of these competitors also used enslaved labor to produce these wares and particularly to produce them in volume.
00:13:37
Speaker
And there's no evidence that Kamara, a formerly enslaved man himself, also used enslaved labor.
00:13:44
Speaker
So that is, again, one way that he's really setting himself apart in this industry.
00:13:50
Speaker
And just to be clear, I mean, we know that other black craftspeople certainly did use slave labor in workshops across the United States.
00:14:00
Speaker
So if Kamra didn't, it wasn't just because of the color of his skin.
00:14:07
Speaker
It must have had something to do with the way he wanted to operate his business.
00:14:13
Speaker
Exactly.
00:14:14
Speaker
He was active in a lot of political conversations for the free Black community in that time period.
00:14:24
Speaker
He was...
00:14:28
Speaker
a really prominent participant, I should add, in an 1809 celebration of the end of American participation in the international slave trade.
00:14:38
Speaker
He sang twice and led two hymns.
00:14:42
Speaker
And so we know, again, from these little pieces of documentary evidence that
00:14:47
Speaker
He's active in anti-slavery conversations.
00:14:50
Speaker
He's not using slave labor in his business.
00:14:53
Speaker
And it really shows how multidimensional his life was and how this particular position was one that he practiced in all aspects of his life.
00:15:05
Speaker
So the exhibition at New York Historical Society includes 22 of Kamra's pots.
00:15:13
Speaker
How many surviving pots are there that we know of?
00:15:16
Speaker
And where have those mostly been discovered?
00:15:19
Speaker
We estimate that we've identified, I should say, at least
00:15:25
Speaker
60 in public collections across the country.
00:15:29
Speaker
But we estimate once you factor in private collections in particular, that it's easily, easily over 100, which is so exciting to think about just the number of vessels that have kind of reunited and come together as a family in the show right now.
00:15:52
Speaker
The surviving vessels, they are as close as New York City, New York State.
00:15:58
Speaker
We found them as far as the Midwest.
00:16:02
Speaker
We have examples from the chipstone in the show, and we even found one at the Henry Ford.
00:16:12
Speaker
Actually, the court has three.
00:16:15
Speaker
And so they're really spread out to an extent.
00:16:18
Speaker
But it shows you that even before people knew that he was black, there was recognition in museums all across the country that this work was important.
00:16:28
Speaker
Do you think there are more Camara pots out there waiting to be discovered?
00:16:31
Speaker
I do.
00:16:32
Speaker
Please let me know if you identify some.
00:16:36
Speaker
I always love seeing new Camara pots because they're so distinct and they each have such an interesting story.
00:16:44
Speaker
I love learning about new pots.
00:16:47
Speaker
What should listeners be looking for if they're rooting around in flea markets and think they might have come across a Camara pot?
00:16:54
Speaker
Great question.
00:16:56
Speaker
There are a handful of trademarks that are really easy to spot once you know the details.
00:17:03
Speaker
His signature, Comrade's Stoneware, he puts the name of his business on it.
00:17:10
Speaker
Of note, the S in Comrade's is backwards, the N in Stoneware is backwards, and the A has this really delightful bent crossbar that...
Notable Features and Pots of Camara
00:17:21
Speaker
stands out so much in this larger field of stoneware and he's almost always using swags and tassels but of note occasionally does this really rich hand incised
00:17:37
Speaker
floral motif that was common in the period and in at least two examples in the show would have used a compass to create a half circle you can see the little pinprick right in the middle of it so there's a real range of decorations but camarades stoneware corallier's hook with or without two e's all great clues
00:17:59
Speaker
All right.
00:18:00
Speaker
Eyes open.
00:18:03
Speaker
Tell me about the pots that are included in the exhibition.
00:18:07
Speaker
Is there an example or two that are particularly notable that you'd like to tell us about?
00:18:12
Speaker
Of course.
00:18:13
Speaker
I would love to highlight two examples from the New York Historical Society collection because they are two of my favorites.
00:18:23
Speaker
One is, oh man, this is hard.
00:18:26
Speaker
I have to highlight three of them.
00:18:30
Speaker
One, two of them, in fact, are at the front of the gallery.
00:18:33
Speaker
One is this really beautiful piece on loan to us by Joseph Grimacki.
00:18:39
Speaker
And it is easily Kamara's masterwork.
00:18:44
Speaker
The jug is huge.
00:18:46
Speaker
It's several gallons.
00:18:48
Speaker
It has this incredible...
00:18:52
Speaker
grayish whitish color, which is a testament to what a high grade of sand and how successfully it was fired.
00:19:00
Speaker
The glaze is really evenly applied.
00:19:03
Speaker
And in it, we're seeing
00:19:06
Speaker
both of the combinations of motifs that would become Kamara's signature.
00:19:11
Speaker
We have the swags and tassels that you would see on high-styled furniture, but we also see Kamara inverting those swags into a shape that looks akin to a clamshell or a bow knot.
00:19:26
Speaker
And it also has Camaraz stoneware wrapped around the neck, along with Coralier's hook and York.
00:19:35
Speaker
It's just, it is astounding.
00:19:38
Speaker
Easily my favorite piece.
00:19:39
Speaker
Hmm.
00:19:40
Speaker
My second favorite piece actually is kind of related to the last topic that I came to speak about because I've written about the Index of American Design.
00:19:51
Speaker
It's this beautiful cylindrical piece from the New York Historical Society.
00:19:57
Speaker
Again,
00:19:58
Speaker
beautiful gray color swags and tassels all along the top and for both of these pieces you can see how carefully the cobalt blue was applied to each individual decorative motif and inside the lettering of all the different stamps that he's applying
00:20:21
Speaker
It's such a testament to his skill, his command over his craft, and the pride that he would have taken in his work.
00:20:32
Speaker
So that's two, and there's one more that you just couldn't leave out.
00:20:35
Speaker
I'm not going to lie, I thought of a fourth, but I'll leave.
00:20:39
Speaker
The third one is also from the New York Historical Society, and it's unique because it has all of Kamara's decorative motifs on the front.
00:20:51
Speaker
Usually they're imposed on one side or the other in some sort of way.
00:20:59
Speaker
But you see Comrade Stoneware, Corlears Hook, and York all stacked on top of each other in a way that is just so striking to see it gathered in one place.
00:21:13
Speaker
It's also special because the tassels are filled with a little bit of manganese.
00:21:18
Speaker
So there's a little bit of purple to set this one apart.
00:21:22
Speaker
So those are my three, but it's tough.
00:21:26
Speaker
I could keep picking them as long as we keep talking about him.
00:21:30
Speaker
So I'll stop there.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yeah, we could go through all 22, I'm sure.
00:21:34
Speaker
But we'll just have to let listeners go and see the show for themselves.
Engaging the Audience and Sponsorship Details
00:21:42
Speaker
We'll be right back with Alison Robinson and more about Thomas Kamara, especially his devastating trip to Africa and the legacy of his work.
00:21:51
Speaker
But first, I want to let you know that you can get in touch by finding me on Instagram at Objective Interest or email at CuriousObjectsPodcast at gmail.com.
00:22:00
Speaker
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00:22:08
Speaker
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00:22:18
Speaker
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00:22:22
Speaker
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00:22:28
Speaker
Actually, since I started working on Curious Objects, I've realized what a difference this actually makes, and I've made a habit of starting to rate the other podcasts I listen to and love.
00:22:38
Speaker
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00:22:44
Speaker
I also want to thank this episode's sponsor, Old Hope, which is a gallery I really adore.
00:22:50
Speaker
I look forward to their openings and their catalogs, and their connoisseurship is absolutely first rate.
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00:23:04
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After more than four decades in the antiques business, Old Hope remains a leading source for exceptional examples of American folk art and decorative arts.
00:23:14
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00:24:11
Speaker
Can we talk a bit about Thomas Kamara, the man?
00:24:15
Speaker
You know, as I mentioned at the top of the program, it wasn't until 2010 that Brant Zipp found the census record that you mentioned identifying him as Black.
00:24:29
Speaker
What did people think about Kamara before that?
00:24:32
Speaker
What assumptions had they made?
00:24:33
Speaker
And why did that discovery come so late?
00:24:36
Speaker
Kamara's story is one that...
00:24:40
Speaker
I like to tell people he's very much hidden in plain sight.
00:24:45
Speaker
He left such a deep documentary record about his life, but part of the challenges of uncovering that record is that Kamara is really hard to spell.
00:25:00
Speaker
The gallery shows at least three different documents that completely misspell his name.
00:25:07
Speaker
The one that
00:25:10
Speaker
may have led researchers to believing that he is of French descent, spelled Camarot with a U at the end, the 1795 directory record.
00:25:22
Speaker
There's, I think, the 1797, yep, listing in, oh no, I think it might be in the 1800s, but there's a pottery directory listing of him where his name is Camarer with an A-R.
00:25:39
Speaker
And by the time he's leaving for Sierra Leone in 1820, his last name is misspelled Cameran.
00:25:45
Speaker
There's at least 16 different ways that people have misspelled his name over the course of his lifetime.
00:25:51
Speaker
And so it was revelatory to find out that Cameran was in fact African-American because it is so clear on the 1800 census record.
00:26:06
Speaker
It actually says Cameran.
00:26:08
Speaker
Thomas Comerat with a slash mark, A Black.
00:26:13
Speaker
Very much...
00:26:15
Speaker
apparent based off the documentary record.
00:26:18
Speaker
Exactly.
00:26:19
Speaker
But it would require so much time and manpower to comb through hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles and newspaper records, census records to determine who he was based off of every possible misspelling that keeps popping up in order to piece together his life.
00:26:44
Speaker
It is worth noting, Kamara never misspelled his own name.
00:26:48
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
00:26:49
Speaker
Because I know, you know, many craftspeople, well, and other people of that era, you'll find them, you know, varying their name from place to place and not caring too much about the particular spelling.
00:27:04
Speaker
But for Kamara, it was always consistent.
00:27:06
Speaker
Always consistent.
00:27:07
Speaker
You can see it across...
00:27:10
Speaker
newspaper articles where he's making calls to the free black community to participate in a variety of different activities and conversations you see it in easily the most moving document in the entire uh exhibition which we can talk about in a little bit a certificate of freedom where we see comrades
00:27:34
Speaker
gorgeous handwriting.
00:27:36
Speaker
And this is the only confirmed document with his signature on it.
00:27:41
Speaker
It's astounding.
00:27:42
Speaker
Again, spelling Kamara correctly.
00:27:45
Speaker
And he's left all of these clues for us in the present about who he was as a person, the political conversations that he cared about, his business.
00:27:56
Speaker
But
00:27:58
Speaker
Because of a combination of the ways that documentary records are dispersed and misspellings, that it really took until the digital age and compiling a lot of this information in one place for this research to become possible.
00:28:17
Speaker
It's worthy of noting that scholars didn't even know his first name was Thomas until the 1940s.
00:28:24
Speaker
So how did he come to be a free man in New York, you know, decades before New York abolished slavery?
Camara's Activism and Personal Life
00:28:32
Speaker
And not just a free man, but a literate, accomplished man with a sophisticated trade.
00:28:39
Speaker
We know from the will of William Crolius of the Crolius Stoneware dynasty that Comoran gained his freedom along with his parents and his two sisters in 1799.
00:28:58
Speaker
We estimate he would have been born around 1771, which would have put him around the age of eight at the point of becoming, or rather gaining his freedom.
00:29:10
Speaker
There's a lot of questions surrounding where he would have gotten his training, but we do know little pieces of his life, again, because of the records left behind.
00:29:25
Speaker
So by 1792, Kamara is married in a moment that I just find so touching.
00:29:36
Speaker
It's right at the start of our gallery.
00:29:38
Speaker
We have a little panel all about Kamara's early years.
00:29:41
Speaker
And after talking about him, um,
00:29:45
Speaker
gaining his freedom, we present this record, it's a church record from Trinity Episcopal Church, of Comorah and Mary Rowe getting married in 1792.
00:30:00
Speaker
This is really special because Mary only shows up in the documentary record twice.
00:30:07
Speaker
once at her marriage to Thomas and later when she passes away and so we're just seeing these little flecks of him as a human being as a family man also of note his sister Venus gets married in the exact same church days later oh wow and so we're getting these little moments where we get to understand kind of the textures of his life
00:30:36
Speaker
Most of the following documentary record that we highlight in the show is about his political activity.
00:30:46
Speaker
to summarize it very briefly.
00:30:52
Speaker
In the early 1800s, to your point, Ben, about how slowly gradual emancipation went into effect in the United States, well, not in the United States, in New York State, rather, starting in 1799.
00:31:07
Speaker
At the same time, New York State is starting to pass a series of laws in the 1800s, making it
00:31:15
Speaker
easier to vote if you're of european descent and harder to vote if you're of african descent the gradual emancipation laws are causing a growth in the free black community in terms of population and so
00:31:32
Speaker
free black men, women cannot vote at this time, have to file something called a certificate of freedom in order to practice the right to vote.
00:31:43
Speaker
It involves what would have been a rather humiliating description of yourself.
00:31:51
Speaker
And it required having another person that you know, write an attestation that they know that you are free and not enslaved.
00:32:01
Speaker
Thomas Comerat did this for a young man named Peter Johnson in the 1810s.
00:32:08
Speaker
And it's, again, such a really beautiful reflection of how well he knows this young man.
00:32:15
Speaker
They've known each other for 16 years.
00:32:17
Speaker
They must have developed some sort of kinship or friendship over the course of their life for Comerat to not just sign this document, but he wrote a whole paragraph about how they know each other.
00:32:31
Speaker
And so it's a moment where we're seeing Kamara using his literacy.
00:32:35
Speaker
We don't know where he gained his literacy, but again, he has this beautiful, confident signature in handwriting that is
00:32:43
Speaker
Certainly better than mine.
00:32:46
Speaker
But he has this beautiful handwriting that he's using, obviously both to run his business, but to support political efforts of members of the free Black community as well.
00:32:58
Speaker
I'd encourage everyone to come see the document because...
00:33:02
Speaker
lifting the sheet that we have over to protect it from light really is just such a powerful moment that transports you to this moment in time when free black people are trying to exercise political rights like voting um
00:33:21
Speaker
getting a house, getting a job, but all of these things are becoming increasingly difficult in this era.
00:33:28
Speaker
And Comrade is doing his best to try to support communal efforts to band together and really flourish.
00:33:37
Speaker
Now, what is it that led Comrade to travel to Sierra Leone?
Tragic Ending and Legacy of Camara
00:33:43
Speaker
And how did that go for him?
00:33:46
Speaker
That is probably the saddest moment in the exhibition.
00:33:52
Speaker
I mentioned that the War of 1812, I mentioned this in passing, that the War of 1812 was really economically devastating.
00:34:02
Speaker
It was devastating for New York City in general, but it was also particularly devastating for entrepreneurs and free Black entrepreneurs.
00:34:15
Speaker
At the same time that Comorah is doing all of this political work, I should note that he actually published a rallying call in a free black newspaper, encouraging black men to build a rampart in Brooklyn during the war of 1812, because black people were barred from participating in the militia.
00:34:35
Speaker
It's a way of demonstrating support of the new nation.
00:34:40
Speaker
At the same time,
00:34:41
Speaker
Comra is starting to suffer a series of financial setbacks that ultimately results in him losing his house, his property, everything down to his horse and cart by 1819.
00:34:58
Speaker
After this, at this point, his first wife has passed away.
00:35:03
Speaker
He's married again.
00:35:10
Speaker
ends up mortgaging his property.
00:35:12
Speaker
I should note this is before he sold everything.
00:35:15
Speaker
He ends up mortgaging his property.
00:35:17
Speaker
It doesn't work.
00:35:18
Speaker
They both lose everything.
00:35:20
Speaker
This is of note because it is, again, so striking to see a Black woman, while it is on a document announcing an auction, listed as a plaintiff and a property owner alongside her husband.
00:35:36
Speaker
Very powerful.
00:35:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:39
Speaker
The two of them have lost everything, but they have three children that they need to take care of.
00:35:47
Speaker
And so they're really stuck between a rock and a hard place.
00:35:53
Speaker
We know from a letter written by Kamara's pastor at St.
00:35:58
Speaker
Stephen's Episcopal Church that he was interested in going to Sierra Leone with the American Colonization Society because he had aspirations of greatness, which you can see from his life in New York, he had a really prominent role in the free Black community.
00:36:16
Speaker
I don't think it's
00:36:19
Speaker
I think we're seeing a lot of his pastor's personal perspective in this letter, but it does give us insight that reflects back to his life in New York.
00:36:28
Speaker
He had a successful business.
00:36:30
Speaker
He played a prominent role in the community.
00:36:33
Speaker
And perhaps moving to Sierra Leone with this first voyage funded by the American Colonization Society was an opportunity for a new life for him and his family.
00:36:47
Speaker
So this would have been a decision that would have been challenging for Kamara and his family because colonization was a subject that was very much under debate by the free Black community all across the United States.
00:37:05
Speaker
The American Colonization Society was one that...
00:37:10
Speaker
attempted to relocate free Black people from the United States to Africa as an effort to, the word they use is repatriate them.
00:37:22
Speaker
But it's important to note that these would have been individuals who, for the most part, were born, raised, and lived their lives in the United States.
00:37:33
Speaker
The American Colonization Society had ties to Southern slaveholders, which left a lot of members of the free Black community either skeptical or distrustful of this organization and this movement.
00:37:48
Speaker
We have an image in the gallery at the New York Historical Society that really captures some of the more insidious undertones of this effort.
00:38:03
Speaker
But Kamra, as a man who lost everything, who had a family and who needed to build a life for himself, ultimately opted to travel with the American colonization society as a group of 88 of the first immigrants to the colony.
00:38:29
Speaker
Sadly, the trip, it was 33 days long.
00:38:31
Speaker
It went.
00:38:35
Speaker
just terribly.
00:38:36
Speaker
I can't even terribly doesn't cover how far, how, how, how poorly this endeavor went.
00:38:47
Speaker
Half of the immigrants contracted malaria after arriving on Sherbro Island.
00:38:56
Speaker
Two of them were Kamra's wife and his niece who passed away shortly afterwards.
00:39:04
Speaker
The white agents who were in charge of this endeavor also caught malaria and passed away.
00:39:11
Speaker
And so there's a lot of chaos because the immigrants also, they don't have enough supplies to survive and they're not receiving the support that they need from the American Colonization Society to make it a success.
00:39:27
Speaker
And so you can only imagine the chaos and the fear that would have descended on these people who are far away from everything they know and everything they had known, and were just trying to seek a better life for themselves.
00:39:47
Speaker
Comoros sent back two letters about the experience.
00:39:49
Speaker
The first was published in 1820 after he arrives.
00:39:53
Speaker
It's very rosy and optimistic.
00:39:55
Speaker
He talks about how plentiful the land is and all of the opportunities that everyone has.
00:40:03
Speaker
But it really takes a turn.
00:40:05
Speaker
By December 1821, we're seeing he's publishing another article about the absolute devastation on
00:40:15
Speaker
every possible level that has been experienced on this trip.
00:40:22
Speaker
He does make his way back to, I shouldn't say trip, I'm going to call it an endeavor.
00:40:27
Speaker
He makes his way back to the United States, to Baltimore in 1822, but we don't have evidence that he returned to the Potter's Wheel after doing so.
00:40:40
Speaker
His children did not become potters, and sadly, he passed away a year later in 1823.
00:40:48
Speaker
And so his life is one that was filled with so many obstacles from birth to death.
00:40:59
Speaker
But what is so admirable about his story is that you're seeing someone who is
00:41:06
Speaker
constantly fighting for himself and for others to try to do what's best to try to get the best life possible despite all of those just almost unimaginable hardships that he faced over the course of his lifetime.
00:41:30
Speaker
So how did his legacy survive after his death?
00:41:34
Speaker
And when did scholars start to take notice of his work?
00:41:39
Speaker
We point out in the show that there are two ways that his legacy survives.
00:41:46
Speaker
The one that I am really the most excited about, I'm not going to say the most excited about, but I am really, really thrilled about it, is his descendants.
00:41:56
Speaker
And I'm so thrilled about it because we were able to track down
00:42:04
Speaker
his descendants, one of whom lives in Jacksonville, Florida, Margie Hofer, my co-curator, tracked this man down and he was so thrilled to talk to us all about his family and how they lived in Massachusetts and Florida, how his father
00:42:26
Speaker
would pursue a master's degree in education and became an advocate to fight segregation in 1930s and 1940s Florida.
00:42:39
Speaker
And so through his descendants, we're really seeing this tradition of education, entrepreneurship and advocacy, advocacy continuing today, which is so powerful.
00:42:54
Speaker
Some of his descendants also came to the opening in January, which was so delightful.
00:43:00
Speaker
They're such wonderful people.
00:43:02
Speaker
Hi, everyone.
00:43:02
Speaker
I hope you listen to this episode.
00:43:07
Speaker
Kamra is also celebrated today for being such an innovative stoneware craftsman.
00:43:15
Speaker
To see his work drawing so heavily on federal style motifs as a way to set himself apart, as a way to attract new customers is so powerful and it speaks to
00:43:32
Speaker
how innovative and observant and creative this man was when he was working as an entrepreneur, working to compete against families that had been doing this for generations.
00:43:48
Speaker
Scholars,
00:43:50
Speaker
And I should also say collectors, museum professionals started gaining an interest in him in the early 1900s as part of a larger effort to collect American stoneware.
00:44:04
Speaker
And of course, if you're seeing these pieces that are just so different from everything else, down to the fact that he is the only one using a possessive in his business name on his stoneware, comma, Roz stoneware.
00:44:20
Speaker
It just drags you in.
00:44:23
Speaker
It just makes you want to collect his work.
00:44:27
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead.
00:44:28
Speaker
No, I was just going to say, and from there we're seeing, again, little pieces of information slowly trickle in.
00:44:36
Speaker
No one knew that he was African American.
00:44:38
Speaker
Everyone assumed that he was of European descent.
00:44:41
Speaker
They discovered
00:44:43
Speaker
working at the Index of American Design, the branch in New York City, that his name was Thomas.
00:44:48
Speaker
It's fascinating seeing someone go back into the documentary record and handwrite Thomas over a printed document when they figured out what his name was.
00:44:57
Speaker
And it wasn't until Brant Zipp shared his discovery in 2010 that we learned that this story was even bigger than we could have possibly imagined.
00:45:09
Speaker
And so again, Kamara, he is so prominent in the free Black community.
00:45:18
Speaker
It really highlights the fact that we as a decorative arts community, as a scholarly community, can't jump to conclusions about someone's background or their identity because sometimes we
00:45:32
Speaker
just have to keep digging and we'll uncover a story that's even more exciting and complex than we could have possibly imagined.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:44
Speaker
It's a fantastic story after the story.
00:45:49
Speaker
Um, the story of discovery and investigation.
00:45:54
Speaker
Um,
00:45:55
Speaker
And his work has been shown and published before and particularly with interest since 2010.
00:46:04
Speaker
But this exhibition is the first single artist Kamara exhibition.
00:46:12
Speaker
I'm wondering how that came to be.
00:46:14
Speaker
How did this exhibition come about?
00:46:16
Speaker
Kamara has been...
00:46:19
Speaker
celebrated and shown for a long time, along with other stoneware craftsmen.
Creation of the Exhibition and Historical Recognition
00:46:26
Speaker
But I really want to give a strong nod to Margie Hofer, my co-curator, who has been excited about this show for over a decade.
00:46:41
Speaker
When she learned that Kamara was of African descent, when Brancet made his discovery, she recognized that we have five Kamara pieces in the collection.
00:46:54
Speaker
We have one of the largest Kamara holdings in a public institution in the country.
00:47:00
Speaker
And so this was a real opportunity to share this New York story in New York's first museum.
00:47:11
Speaker
And so this show has been in the works truly for 13 years.
00:47:18
Speaker
But then Margie started working on the show.
00:47:23
Speaker
She eventually connected with Mark Shapiro, our co-curator.
00:47:27
Speaker
And I joined as co-curator in 2001 when I became a postdoc at the New York Historical Society.
00:47:35
Speaker
And it was so exciting to see Margie's expertise in decorative arts coming together with Mark's expertise on the life of Kamara.
00:47:46
Speaker
I got to contribute my own information about the free Black community since I'm a trained historian and bring all three of these things together to
00:48:00
Speaker
highlight what an important figure is, figure Kamara is for all sorts of reasons, both in the history of the free black community, New York City, stoneware pottery, transatlantic movement, that it really blossomed into a show that I think is really textured and exciting.
00:48:24
Speaker
And I hope people get a lot out of it.
00:48:28
Speaker
So you've alluded to some objects in the exhibition that aren't Kamara pots or jugs.
00:48:37
Speaker
What other material have you included and why?
00:48:42
Speaker
We have a couple of different types of material that we've included to really help flesh out the world that Kamara lived in and the life that he led within that world.
00:48:57
Speaker
We have this really beautiful central wall that is highlighting all of Kamara's decorative motifs over the course of his lifetime.
00:49:10
Speaker
And I love bringing that up because it gets decorated with all of those same decorative motifs and it's stunning.
00:49:19
Speaker
We've also included a lot of documents from our collection, as well as reproductions to both show the historian's job of piecing together a person's life through little documentary snippets and snapshots, but also to demonstrate how rich of a documentary record Comra left behind.
00:49:45
Speaker
So I love pointing out, for instance, that his first appearance in a city directory is a document we drew from our collection.
00:49:55
Speaker
That certificate of freedom that I discussed earlier also coming from our collection.
00:50:01
Speaker
the HEO9 celebration pamphlet at Zion Church, also from New York Historical Society.
00:50:08
Speaker
And so it's really beautiful to think as a curator and as a historian about all of these little pieces of his life that have been accruing in our library for, I mean, we've been open for two centuries, we've been accruing for a long time, just waiting for someone to bring it all together along with his vessels.
00:50:33
Speaker
We also have this gorgeous black back wall showing Kamara's works on the left along with his competitors on the right.
00:50:43
Speaker
So you really get a sense for how Kamara is setting himself apart from his competitors with these just really striking decorative approaches.
00:50:53
Speaker
They just pop right out at you when you can better understand the context of the stoneware industry in New York and New Jersey at the time that he's working.
00:51:02
Speaker
And finally, we have these other pieces of contextual material, both from our own collection and others that help you understand what the free Black community was like at large.
00:51:18
Speaker
We have a section all about the creative, entrepreneurial, and political work happening before and after Kamara's time.
00:51:30
Speaker
So you get a sense for all the conversations that are happening.
00:51:35
Speaker
And we have a few pieces related to the colonization movement that help
00:51:44
Speaker
really capture in a visual what the mission of the American Colonization Society
00:51:55
Speaker
was and why the free black community would have ended up having such a debate over the advantages of of moving to places like Sierra Leone versus staying in the United States and continuing to build the community at home so we have a lot about Kamara's life we have a lot of contextual pieces and together it really
00:52:19
Speaker
fleshes out a story that I find quite moving.
00:52:26
Speaker
How would you say all of this deep scholarship about Comra has changed our broader understanding about 19th century American decorative arts?
00:52:39
Speaker
Big question.
00:52:42
Speaker
I would repeat my
00:52:46
Speaker
earlier comment that I made simply because I think it's worth really highlighting when it comes to decorative arts of any century or 19th century in particular.
00:53:03
Speaker
It's
00:53:05
Speaker
challenging for all of us to conduct that documentary research and really build those, those rich backstories for the people whose work we're collecting.
00:53:18
Speaker
But that work that we're doing is so important for
00:53:24
Speaker
fleshing out the diversity of people participating in the decorative arts for understanding the huge range in lives that they lived and opportunities that they had and challenges that they faced based off of who they were and the political context in which they lived.
00:53:50
Speaker
think there's a really rich history in the case of a comrade shows us of african-american participation in the decorative arts that we are
00:54:06
Speaker
Thanks to a lot of different scholars starting to appreciate in a way that I think is significant.
00:54:12
Speaker
And I hope it gets people excited to keep digging and keep doing research because there's just infinite surprises out there waiting for us.
00:54:22
Speaker
And it's really encouraging to think about
00:54:25
Speaker
how eye-opening new discoveries are when they're shared with the broader public.
00:54:33
Speaker
So we can all learn and build off that research and come up with new and important innovations all together.
00:54:43
Speaker
So what comes next for the exhibition and for work on Kamerat?
00:54:49
Speaker
So in terms of what's next for Kamara, we are so pleased that the show will start traveling after its conclusion at New York Historical on May 27th.
00:55:05
Speaker
So if visitors don't have an opportunity to come to New York City, the next stop is the Fenimore Art Museum.
00:55:10
Speaker
There will be an opportunity there.
00:55:13
Speaker
We also are so pleased that Ceramics in America will be releasing a suite of articles all about Kamara, his work, and the context that he lived in.
00:55:26
Speaker
following the close of the show so conversations can continue and continue to grow of course brent zipp's book is out and so that's another space to learn more about camarades life and of course we always encourage people to keep digging into this man's life because we want to learn more too
00:55:52
Speaker
So there are more opportunities to learn more about Kamara, both through text and through the show, but also for all the listeners.
00:56:03
Speaker
If you learn new things about Kamara, please share it with the museum world because we are very excited about this man.
00:56:16
Speaker
Well, Alison Robinson, thank you so much for joining me.
00:56:19
Speaker
It's been a real pleasure to talk to you.
00:56:21
Speaker
Thank you so much, Ben.
00:56:23
Speaker
I always enjoy coming onto your podcast to talk about decorative arts and I really appreciate the invitation.
00:56:28
Speaker
We'll have to do it again soon.
00:56:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:56:31
Speaker
Can't wait.
00:56:34
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with social media and web support by Sarah Bellotta.
00:56:42
Speaker
Sierra Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
00:56:46
Speaker
And our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:56:48
Speaker
And I'm Ben Miller.