Fortune's bones : the manumission requiem / Marilyn Nelson ; notes and annotations by Pamela Espeland

Object Details

Author

Nelson, Marilyn 1946-

Espeland, Pamela 1951-

Accelerated Reader 4-9 5.6 0.5 85474.

Coretta Scott King Honor, author, 2005.

NMAF copy 39088018806802 gift from the collection of Lonnie G. Bunch III.

Contents

Preface -- Spoken -- Dinah's lament -- Contralto -- On Abrigador Hill -- Baritone I and choir -- Kyrie of the bones -- Choir with solos -- Not my bones -- Baritone II with choir -- Sanctus -- Choir -- Afterword -- Notes and sources

Summary

Fortune was a slave who lived in Waterbury, Conn., in the late 1700s. He was married and the father of 4 children. When Fortune died in 1798, his master, Dr. Porter, preserved his skeleton to further the study of anatomy. Now the skeleton is in the Mattatuck Museum where it is still being studied. There is a skeleton on display in the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut. It has been in the town for over 200 years. Over time, the bones became the subject of stories and speculation in Waterbury. In 1996 a group of community-based volunteers, working in collaboration with the museum staff, discovered that the bones were those of a slave named Fortune who had been owned by a local doctor. After Fortune's death, the doctor dissected the body, rendered the bones, and assembled the skeleton. A great deal is still not known about Fortune, but it is known that he was baptized, was married, and had four children. He died at about the age of 60, sometime after 1797.

2004

©2004

Type

Poetry

Physical description

32 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), color map ; 25 cm

Place

Connecticut

Smithsonian Libraries

Topic

Slaves

Slavery

African Americans

Young adult poetry, American

Young adult poetry

Record ID

siris_sil_767446

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0