Current Exhibition — Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery

Curator’s Note

I have followed Mark Steven Greenfield's work since the 90s. His work has been a decades-long commitment to reify his feelings and knowledge of the world in his paintings. While his work has been inspired by the black experience in America, his paintings are far more than reactions to history. Above all, they are structuring a new language of expression that benefits from the strata of historical information processed in the crucible of his fires. His Black Madonna and HALO series presented in this exhibition "AURAS" reframe the black experience and European history as it was replanted on a newfound soil.

Mark Steven Greenfield is a painter of phenomenal insight whose work exemplifies issues at play regarding the black identity and history in the United States. These two series, Black Madonna and HALO, reflect the spirituality permeating the black psyche as they reach back into the earliest experiences of their presence on the American continent and their exposure to European Christian narratives. Halo conveys the black spiritual experience through various social, political, and religious signs and symbols. By appropriating and repositioning these signs and symbols, Halo colonizes the colonizer.

Each image is the truth resurfaced as the story is retold. To put it artfully and adroitly, each of his images is born of the black bosom of love and the black experiences of pain, and yet it exemplifies their struggle, survival and victory. From all perspectives, these images are a fusion of European and African experiences. They are a unifying sign that undermines differences, biases, and historical fractures. Greenfield's art transforms the European and American imagery into what is familiar to one group in regard to color and familiar to another group in regard to the narrative and history of art. I have no other path of understanding but to conclude that the stories belong to those who have lived them and processed them in their own settings and through their own experiences. Most importantly, in today's political and philosophical arena of the American experience and its masked racial divisions, the Black Madonna and Halo series offer a new vision of the black persona and of the white history that transcends the narratives of the injustices experienced.

I am delighted that Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery has once again the opportunity to present work by Mark Steven Greenfield, "AURAS," the Black Madonna and Halo series, which a majority were accomplished between the years 2018 and 2024. The gallery looks forward to robust discussions regarding the artistic and social merits of Greenfield's work.

Mika M. Cho, Curator, 2024

Installation Images

HALO

Auras, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

40 x 30 in.

Abram Petrovich Gannibal, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Abram Petrovich Gannibal was born in 1696, the son of a minor African chief. His place of birth is the subject of some debate, with claims that he was born in Sudan, Ethiopia, or Eritrea. In a battle with the Ottomans, his father was killed, and Abram, then eight years old, was pressed into slavery and taken to Constantinople. His intelligence, quick wit, and resourcefulness caught the attention of the Russian ambassador, who smuggled him into Russia and gifted him to Peter the Great in 1704. Many European courts would retain young Africans as valets and body servants to indicate their financial status. In Peter’s case, he used Abram to demonstrate his desire to bring Russia into the modern world and combat the isolationist tendencies of his court. As Abram grew older, he accompanied Peter on several military and diplomatic campaigns, and Peter acknowledged him as his godson, much to the displeasure of the Russian aristocracy. In 1717 Peter took him to France to continue his training in engineering and military tactics. While in Paris he became enamored with the French intelligentsia, including the writer Voltaire, who referred to him as “The Dark Star of Enlightenment.” In 1725 Peter the Great died, and Abram’s fortunes changed for the worse. Years of court jealousy over the attention he commanded from Peter resulted in his banishment to a remote outpost in Siberia. But in 1741, when Peter’s daughter Elizabeth ascended to the throne, Abram was reinstated to the nobility, promoted to Chief Military Engineer of the Russian Army, and given a sizable estate. His great-grandson was the noted writer Alexander Pushkin, who penned a biography of Abram titled The Moor of Peter the Great. Abram Petrovich Gannibal died in St. Petersburg on May 14, 1781, at the age of 85.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Duchess Quamino, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Duchess Quamino, born on the Gold Coast of Africa in 1739, this daughter of a minor royal family was only about 11 years old when she was enslaved and transported to Newport, Rhode Island, aboard the slave ship Elizabeth. In Newport she was sold to William and Lucy Channing and given the name Charity. Growing up in the Channing household, she became a nanny and cook, learned to read and write, and converted to Christianity, becoming a member of the Second Congregational Church. She defiantly sat with the Channings in the white section and self-identified as the daughter of an African prince, hence the origins of the moniker “Duchess.” In 1769, she married John Quamino, an enslaved man from a neighboring estate. Although the couple did not live together, they had four children, all of whom lived in the Channing household. In a stroke of life-changing luck, her husband won a lottery in 1773 and bought his freedom. He attended the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, to train as a missionary but left his vocation at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War to serve as a privateer, hoping to raise enough money to buy the freedom of his wife and daughters. He died in battle in 1779, leaving Duchess a widow at age 40. Records indicate that by 1780 she was no longer enslaved but still working for the Channings, now for wages. Although there is no concrete evidence that she bought her freedom, her emancipation is widely attributed to her success as a caterer, and on at least one occasion she served as a chef for George Washington. She was particularly noted her frosted plum cakes and folklore has it that she baked her way to freedom. Duchess Quamino died on June 29, 1804, and her funeral afforded a rare opportunity to bring Black and white Newporters together.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Francisco Manicongo, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in

Francisco Manicongo was born in the Kingdom of Congo sometime during the mid-1500s. The circumstances under which he was kidnapped and pressed into slavery are unknown, but in 1591 he was identified by the Portuguese Inquisition as living in Bahia, Brazil, where a great number of enslaved people from Angola and Congo were off-loaded. He was listed as the property of a shoemaker named Antonio Pires Manicongo, from the outset refused to wear men’s clothing. He was denounced by Matias Moreira of the Inquisition as a “Sodomite,” based on the accusation of another slave and his habitual cross-dressing. The Inquisition was most likely opposed to the idea of burning Manicongo at the stake for fear of fomenting unrest in the enslaved community and because the Europeans were acquainted with the concept of quimbanda, which translates to the role of submission or receiving woman, a known subculture in Angola and Congo. Manicongo ultimately succumbed to the pressure to adopt men’s clothing, but he never denied his sexuality and love of other men. His determination to live his life true to his conviction has served as inspiration for the LGBTQ+ community in Brazil and beyond.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio.

François Mackandal, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

François Mackandal, believed to have been born in West Africa, possibly Mali, around 1730, was kidnapped at age 12, taken to St. Domingue (present-day Haiti), and sold to the Lenormand plantation. By all accounts he was well educated, well versed in herbalism, and spoke fluent Arabic, likely due to contact with Arab slave traders in the Congo. He was said to have lost his right arm in a sugar press while still enslaved. Some historians say that he was cast out of the plantation because of his disability, while others hold that he escaped after being sentenced to 50 lashes (which would kill most people), but plantation owners were loath to admit that a slave had the brains and skill to escape. Mackandal took refuge in the remote mountains of Haiti, becoming a guerilla leader, uniting the Maroons (escaped and freed slaves) and Indigenous Tainos in a war against the French. He relied on enslaved people still working on plantations as his intelligence network, while his Maroons would raid and burn colonial interests on the island. He used native plants to concoct poisons, which he distributed among the slaves to use on their masters. It’s estimated that Mackandal’s forces killed over 6,000 people during the six years of the insurrection. He was on the verge of poisoning a major water supply when he was betrayed by a slave’s forced confession, captured, and sentenced to be burned at the stake. Mackandal was renowned for escaping captivity, and stories surrounding his death, along with his self-proclaimed immortality, have become legendary. On January 20, 1758, in front of a large group of slaves, he was set alight in the town square, but his stump of an arm foiled the authorities’ attempt to adequately secure him to the stake. He jumped out of the fire. He was quickly wrestled to the ground by the police. The crowd was cleared, and he was retied to the stake and burnt. Because few witnessed the execution, it didn’t take long before his death was given a supernatural spin—he hadn’t really died and his spirit still roamed the island. Mackandal is credited by many with sowing the seeds of the later success of Toussaint-Louverture and the Haitian Revolution.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Joe Travis, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Joe Travis, born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1815 to his mother, Elizabeth, and an unknown father, Joe Travis was one of six children, one of whom was William Wells Brown, a noted abolitionist in the early 19th century. Joe’s grandfather was rumored to be Daniel Boone, the famous frontiersman. Joe grew up as the property of Dr. John Young in Marthasville, Missouri, and was sold to Issacs Mansfield, who moved the family to New Orleans and ultimately to Texas, then part of Mexico. Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829, but Texas colonists could get around this by classifying slaves as “indentured servants.” (One of the issues in the Texas War for Independence [Oct. 1835–April 1836] was keeping the institution of slavery in place.) Upon Mansfield’s death in 1834, the family was broken up and his property was sold for his debts. Joe never saw them again. He was sold to William B. Travis, a soldier and attorney, and became his personal body servant. In early 1836, during the Texas war with Mexico, Joe and Travis arrived at a run-down mission in San Antonio known as the Alamo. Travis assumed command of the garrison there and was charged with the impossible task of defending the position against a vastly superior Mexican force. The siege lasted for 13 days, and at the end Joe was the sole male survivor. Despite an attempt to kill him, a Mexican officer interceded, and he was spared. He was made to identify the bodies of Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett, was questioned by General Santa Ana, and was released. He was briefly treated in Texas as a war hero, but his celebrity was short-lived. He was returned to slavery on the Travis estate for another 15 years. He was last seen in San Antonio in 1877 and disappeared from history.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Liss, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Liss, an enslaved woman who likely played a role as a secret agent during the American Revolution, Liss, or Elizabeth, had been the property of the Townsend family of Oyster Bay, New York, since her birth in 1763. (Only her mother’s name—Pender—is recorded, not her father’s). During the War of Independence, the Townsends’ son Robert became a spy for George Washington’s Culper Ring, aiding in fight against Britain. In 1778, British Royalists occupying Oyster Bay commandeered the Townsend home, and it became headquarters for Col. John Graves Simcoe. He was a British commander loyal to the Crown, but he was also, notably, an early abolitionist. (Indeed, after the war, Simcoe would enact the first laws ending slavery in Canada.) With his help Liss was able to escape in 1779 only to be re-enslaved in New York City by another British officer. During the war, Liss maintained contact with Robert Townsend, and in many of his communications he referred to “Lady 355.” The number 355 was a Culper code for the conveyer of sensitive information, suggesting that Liss might have been an agent. She certainly had many opportunities as an insider. A clue to this comes from 1780, for instance, when two enslaved women, attempting to expose Benedict Arnold’s treason, described Liss as possibly the former mistress of Col. Simcoe and thereby privy to important intelligence. When her British master planned to evacuate New York City in the summer of 1782, Liss, three months pregnant, appealed to Robert Townsend to purchase her. It was an appeal that, despite Townsend’s good intentions, took some time and sleuthing on his part, to see results. After giving birth, Liss and her six-month-old son, Harry, were sold to a woman named Ann Sharwin with the understanding that they would not be taken out of Manhattan without Robert being first notified so he would have the opportunity to repurchase them. But Sharwin married [an unsympathetic!] Alexander Robertson; it was in an ill-fated union; and unbeknownst to Robert, Liss was separated from her son and taken to Charleston, South Carolina, where she was sold to Robert Palmes, who had been one of the instigators of the Boston Massacre and was once the bodyguard of the future president John Adams. In 1787, Robert Townsend, then a member of the New York Manumission Society, was able to discover Liss’s whereabouts and first brought Harry, her son, to Oyster Bay. He then focused his efforts on securing Liss’s freedom. But it wasn’t that easy. Because of a New York law that banned the sale of slaves across state lines, Liss had to be smuggled to Oyster Bay. In the 1790, census she is listed as a free woman working as a paid servant and a member of the Oyster Bay Baptist Church, where the Townsend family had long been active. Her date of death was not recorded.

Courtesy of Mark Steven GreenField Studio

Maria Filipa de Oliviera, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Maria Filipa de Oliviera, very little is known of the early life of Maria Filipa de Oliveira and much that is known about her has been called into question and borders on legend. She is described as an “Afro-Brazilian guerrilla and fishmonger” who lived on Itaparica, a small Brazilian Island off the coast of Salvador, Bahia. The island is historically important as a debarkation point for many enslaved people arriving from Angola and Congo. By all accounts, Maria was a freewoman believed to be the daughter of an enslaved family from the Sudan. In January of 1823, she led a group of 200, mostly women, in a battle of resistance against the Portuguese with whom the Bahianas, both Black and Indigenous, had a long-standing conflict. According to accounts, Maria and a group of women seduced the watchmen for the ships anchored off Itaparica. Once the women were able to get the sailors out of their clothes and sufficiently drunk, they beat them with branches from cansanção, a poisonous plant with thorns that cause immediate infection. While the sailors suffered in agony, the resistance set fire to 42 ships poised to invade Salvador. The episode was a major setback for the Portuguese, who were forced to put their plans for the conquest of Bahia on hold. Maria died on July 4, 1873, and is buried at the church of Saint Lawrence on the island of Itaparica.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

María Remedios del Valle, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

María Remedios del Valle, also known as “Madre de la Patria” (Mother of the Homeland). María Remedios del Valle was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1768. Details of her parentage are unknown, but she was recorded as parda, a category applied to the descendants of African slaves. She was described as an Afro-Argentine camp follower turned soldier in the Argentine War of Independence. In July of 1810, she, along with her husband and her two children, joined in the Army of the North with the objective of liberating Bolivia and Peru from Spain. These forces were active between 1810 and 1817 but ultimately failed, and del Valle’s entire family was killed over the course of several battles. During the Battle of Ayohuma she was wounded and taken prisoner by Spanish troops. She was able to help several prisoners escape but was discovered and sentenced to nine consecutive days of flogging. She made good her own escape and returned to the battlefield, tending the wounded. In October of 1826, following the war, she applied for compensation for services rendered to the country but was denied. She was reduced to a deplorable state of poverty and was seen begging on the streets of Buenos Aires when she was recognized by a former comrade in arms. In 1828, with the help of General Juan José Viamonte and several legislators who testified to del Valle’s bravery in battle, she was granted the rank of sergeant major of the cavalry and appointed to the Active General Staff with full military salary. She died on November 8, 1847. Since 2013, that day has been celebrated as the National Day of Afro-Argentines and African Culture in honor of Remedios del Valle.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Paul Cuffe, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Paul Cuffe, the son of Wampanoag woman and a man named Kofi of the Ashanti tribe of West Africa, Paul Cuffe was born on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1759. His father had been enslaved but was given his freedom by his Quaker owner in the mid 1740s. Paul grew up as a Quaker, and because of his proximity to the sea, he was quick to learn all he could about shipbuilding, whaling, and the shipping business. During the Revolutionary War, he was able to deliver goods to Nantucket by slipping through the British blockades in small boats. After the war, he built a lucrative business shipping cargo along the Atlantic coast. He built his own ships in a boatyard in Westport and used some of his profits to open the first integrated school in the United States. In 1780, Paul and his brother refused to pay taxes because free Black men did not have the right to vote. They petitioned the Bristol County Council to end such taxation without representation, one of the issues at the heart of the American Revolution. Their suit was denied but led to 1783 legislation giving all free male citizens the right to vote in Massachusetts. In 1787, Cuffe built his first ship, a 25-ton schooner they named the Sunfish. By 1806, he had enough capital to build the 268-ton Alpha and was considered the wealthiest African American in the United States. Cuffe had for some years taken an interest in British efforts to establish a colony in Sierra Leone and had relocated a number of formerly enslaved people who had expressed a desire to return to Africa. But his trade with Sierra Leone was interrupted when the War of 1812 began, and relations between the U.S. and Great Britain broke down and trade restrictions were put in place. On one occasion, the cargo of one of Cuffe’s ships was seized by U.S. forces in violation of the embargo. Cuffe appealed to Washington D.C. and met with President James Madison, who concluded that the violation was unintentional and ordered the ship and cargo released. On December 10, 1815, Cuffe, along with 38 free Black colonists, sailed for Sierra Leone and the beginning of a new life. Less than two years later Cuffe returned to Westport and died on September 7, 1817. His last words were “Let me pass quietly away.”

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Sandy, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Nothing is known of the year and birthplace of a slave named Sandy, although some evidence suggest that he may have come from the Gold Coast, present day Ghana. Described as a “Young African Chief” he was captured, sold into slavery by a rival tribe and forced aboard a slave ship bound for the Caribbean, most likely Grenada or Barbados. Sometime after 1763 he was taken to the island of Tobago and was sold to Samuel Hall, co-owner of a recently developed sugar plantation on the Courland Estate. Accounts of the events leading up to what became known as “Sandy’s Rebellion” are contradictory and rely on a combination information extracted from letters sent abroad, newspaper editorials, oral histories and local legends. Working conditions for slaves on Tobago were particularly harsh and on November 12, 1770, Hall allegedly had Sandy flogged for some unknown reason. That evening, in retaliation, Sandy entered Hall’s room while he was asleep and stabbed him multiple times, leaving him for dead. The evidence is inconclusive as to Hall’s surviving the attack, but Sandy immediately organized slaves to lay siege to the British Fort James for the purpose of securing arms and ammunition. The revolt spread across the island destroying several plantations and forcing the British authorities to request troops from nearby Grenada. Sandy and a small group of followers avoided capture and certain death by escaping to the Toco/Matelot area of Trinidad, then under Spanish control. Sandy’s rebellion was quelled by the end of November 1770, but subsequent uprisings would plague the island through 1774. Sandy’s date and place of death are unknown.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Stagecoach Mary Fields, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Stagecoach Mary Fields was born into slavery in Hickman County, Tennessee, in 1832, Mary Fields was emancipated following the Civil War and found work as a chambermaid aboard the Mississippi riverboat Robert E. Lee. There she met and then went to work for a judge, Edmund Dunne, as a housekeeper. Upon his wife’s death, he sent Fields and his five children to live in an Ursuline convent in Toledo, Ohio, where his sister Mary Amadeus was Mother Superior. In 1884, Mother Amadeus was sent to the Montana territory, west of the town of Cascade, to help establish a school for Native American girls. When she learned that Amadeus had been stricken with pneumonia, Fields traveled to Montana to nurse her back to health. Fields took up residence in the convent at St. Peter’s Mission, often dressed as a man, and adopted many of the jobs regarded as “men’s work,” eventually rising to the position of forewoman. Native Americans gave her the name “White Crow” because “she acted like a white person in black skin.” Fields had a hardy temperament, and her contentiousness and habitual profanity was unsettling to the religious community. Following an incident that involved gunplay, the bishop barred her from the convent. Fields moved to Cascade and opened a tavern, but poor business practices forced her to declare bankruptcy in less than a year. Her tough reputation, however, paid off when she drew the attention of the U.S. Post Office Department, which needed someone to guard and deliver mail in the area. Fields was contracted as a Star Route Carrier. Using a stagecoach given to her by Mother Amadeus, she traversed the rocky terrain of her route, donning snowshoes when the roads became impassable. She carried multiple firearms to ward off thieves, bandits, and other predators and established a reputation as someone not to be trifled with. When she retired in 1903, Fields was so respected in Cascade that the schools closed in her honor to celebrate her birthday, and she was exempted from the Montana law prohibiting women from entering saloons. She was the first African American woman and only the second woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service. Fields died in 1914 and is buried outside Cascade, Montana.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Stephen Bishop, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Little is known of Stephen Bishop’s early life, but in 1838, at age 17, he was taken to the Mammoth Caves, a limestone labyrinth south of Louisville, Kentucky, by Franklin Gorin, an attorney and enslaver who had purchased the caves for $5,000. Gorin had acquired Bishop to satisfy a debt stemming from the divorce of Lowry Bishop, a white farmer who was possibly Stephen’s father. Gorin turned around and resold the property a year later to Dr. John Croghan, a nephew of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expeditions. The transaction included Bishop along with several other enslaved individuals, who were at first relocated to the Locust Grove plantation outside of Louisville. But Croghan recognized the value of the Caves as a tourist attraction. (Today they constitute the largest cave system in the world with 412 miles of underground passageways; they were made a National Park in 1941.) He charged Bishop with exploring and mapping the property. Self-taught, Bishop developed an extensive knowledge of geology, understood Latin and Greek, and conducted organized tours of the Caves. His reputation as a guide spread internationally through books and articles, and his contributions ensured that the Caves became a popular destination. In his will, Croghan stipulated that his 28 slaves were to be set free seven years after his death, including Stephen and his wife. Bishop was making plans to move his family to Liberia, declaring, “I do not wish to be free in this country.” A year after his manumission, however, Stephen died of an unidentified cause at age 37. He is buried on a hill above the Caves.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Yaa Asantewaa, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Yaa Asantewaa was born October 17, 1840, in the Ashanti Confederacy of present-day Ghana. She was chosen to be Queen Mother by her elder brother in the 1880s, upholding the Ashantis’ traditional matrilineal culture. Among her many responsibilities was guardianship of the Golden Stool, an important emblem of the Ashanti Kingdom’s culture and power. As Queen Mother, Asantewaa was elected mother of the reigning king and selected candidates or chiefs to occupy the Stool whenever it was vacant, thereby protecting the line of authority. When in 1896 the British attempted to annex the area and make it a Gold Coast colony, the Ashanti people rebelled. In retaliation the British captured and exiled King Prempeh I, Asantewaa’s grandson, and most of the Ashanti leaders, and aimed to acquire the Golden Stool, which the British knew was a physical, symbolic, and spiritual centerpiece of Ashanti culture. With their military leadership gone, the community debated about how they should respond to the British threat. Asantewaa stepped up, declaring that if men would not defend the people, women would rise to the challenge. She assumed the role of commander-in-chief and rallied the troops. The last of the five wars against the British started on March 28,1900, when Sir Frederick Mitchell Hodgson sat on the Golden Stool. The news of Hodgson’s sacrilege spread quickly, and the ensuing rebellion, which became known as the War of the Golden Stool, left over 1,000 British and nearly 2,000 Ashanti dead, higher totals than all their previous battles combined. During the Ashanti siege of the British stronghold of Kumasi Fort, Asantewaa was captured and exiled to the Seychelles. In January 1902, the British finally annexed the territory that was the Ashanti Empire and transformed it into a British protectorate. Asantewaa died in exile on October 17, 1921.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

York, 2024

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

York was born into slavery near Ladysmith, Virginia, sometime in the early 1770s. He along with members of his family were enslaved by and in servitude to John Clark III. Upon Clark’s death in 1799, York was inherited by his son William Clark and took on the role of body servant. In 1803 Clark joined Meriwether Lewis to explore the recently acquired Louisiana Territory. While still a slave, York was assigned to the military and was a full participant in the expedition. He was allowed an equal vote on all decisions and enjoyed unrestricted movement; he was also issued a rifle, something ordinarily not permitted to the enslaved. He proved himself a capable hunter, keeping the fellow explorers stocked with buffalo, elk, deer, and geese, and was a skilled navigator. But probably his most important contribution was his ability to negotiate with Native American tribes they encountered. Whether out of fear or curiosity, the tribes afforded York some degree of respect, and his black skin served as a passport for the expedition. The memory of York persisted in the Native American oral tradition until the 20th century. On November 18, 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also called the Corps of Discovery, reached the Pacific Ocean, at what is now known as Cape Disappointment, Oregon. Upon returning to St. Louis in 1806, everyone who participated in the expedition was paid $30 per month for their 28 months of service and granted 320 acres of land. York received nothing, not even his freedom, which Clark had been known to grant to his slaves for lesser accomplishments. Their relationship deteriorated further when Clark refused to allow York to see his wife in Louisville. By August of 1809, Clark had decided to sell York, but neither a bill of sale nor a statement of manumission has ever been discovered. Nothing is known of his life after 1815, but as late as 1839 there were reports of encounters with a tall, heavyset “negro” who told stories of his time with the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Candy, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Candy, a woman of African descent who was brought to Salem, Massachusetts, from Barbados by her owner (Margaret Hawkes), Candy was arrested for the crime of witchcraft on July 2, 1692. Candy’s arrest came at the beginning of the second wave of accusations made in the infamous Salem witch trials. Her accusers—Mary Walcott and Ann Putnam—had earlier preferred charges against Mary Black, another Black woman, and Tituba, who was part Black and Native American. Once Candy was examined and deemed a witch, she used her position as an outsider to her advantage. Candy confessed her activities as a witch in detail, producing pieces of cloth used for sympathetic magic in the manner of voodoo dolls. She turned over physical evidence that she asserted was part of her practice and admitted to bringing African magic to Salem. She demonstrated a thorough understanding of white people’s notions regarding witchcraft and took note of how little they knew about African sorcery. As an enslaved woman, she was perceived to be powerless, yet she was able to use her status as an alien to avoid punishment. In her testimony Candy cast blame on her master, Margaret Hawkes, stating that she was made to sign “The Devil’s Book,” acknowledging allegiance to Satan. In the end she was found not guilty, as were all those accused who confessed. Margaret Hawkes was never arrested, due in part to her higher social status. Candy disappeared from history.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Carlota of Cuba, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Carlota of Cuba, also known as Carlota Lucumi was born free in the Kingdom of Benin, West Africa. Her last name, “Lucumi,” is taken from the ethnic group who descended from the Yoruba people of present-day Nigeria. It is said that Carlota was kidnapped, taken to Matanzas, Cuba, around age 10 and became a slave on the Triunvirato sugar plantation. Although slavery had been done away with in Haiti in 1803 and was being abolished throughout Latin America and the British Empire, it continued in Cuba, and the Spanish plantation owners were particularly brutal. In 1843 Carlota, with the help of another enslaved woman named Fermina, began to plot a general slave rebellion, starting with those at Triunvirato and spreading to neighboring plantations. Fermina was discovered distributing the plans and was severely beaten and imprisoned. Despite this setback, Carlota began to employ music as a form of coded communication and coordinated plans with the talking drums. On November 5,1843, Carlota and other tribal leaders initiated what came to be known as the Triunvirato Rebellion. The rebels freed the enslaved prisoners, burned down the house in which many had been tortured, killed the overseer’s daughter, and forced the owner, Julian Luis Alfonso, to flee for his life. They went on to destroy five plantations, killing any white person they came across. The uprising sparked international response, with the U.S. offering all necessary help to annihilate the “Afro-Cuban” revolt. Finally the rebels, armed with machetes and farm tools, were no match for the professional army, and many were massacred at the San Rafael Estate. Carlota was captured and tied to four horses until her limbs were dislocated and her body quartered. She remains a symbol of resistance. In 1975 Cuba’s military mission in support of Angola’s fight for independence was named “Operation Carlota.”

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Cathay Williams, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Cathay Williams was born in Independence, Missouri, in 1844 to an enslaved mother and free father. As a teenager she worked as a slave on the Johnson plantation near Jefferson City. In the early days of the Civil War, Jefferson City was occupied by Union forces, and enslaved people were designated as contraband. Many chose to serve the military in support roles as cooks, nurses, and washerwomen. At the age of 17, Cathay assumed the role of laundress in the service of General Philip Sheridan and was witness to several battles. On November 15, 1866, Cathay enlisted in the U.S. Regular Army under the false name William Cathay to evade the prohibition against women serving in the military. She enlisted for a three-year tour of duty and impersonated a man, passing a cursory medical exam. She was assigned to the 38th Infantry, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, and was stationed in New Mexico. Not long after her enlistment she contracted smallpox, and that—along with the heat of the Southwest and the hardships of the years of traveling with the army during the Civil War—took its toll on her health and led to many hospitalizations. During one hospital stay in July of 1868 she was discovered and given a disability discharge. In her post-military life she worked as a cook at Fort Union, New Mexico, and was briefly in a disastrous marriage. She moved to Trinidad, Colorado, where she made a living as a seamstress while trying unsuccessfully to collect a military pension. Cathay Williams died in 1893 at age 51.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Chris Baker, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

It is unclear when Chris Baker was born, and it’s unknown if he was purchased as a slave by the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) or hired as a freeman. What is known is that Baker began working at MCV in 1860 as a janitor. He lived with his parents, who were enslaved and in the service of the College. Together they occupied the basement of the Egyptian Building on campus. In time his duties included obtaining corpses for dissection. In many states, human dissection was illegal for much of the 19th century, and grave robbing carried a penalty of five to 10 years in prison. The only exceptions to the dissection ban were cadavers of convicted criminals and—in some states—the poor. The Virginia Anatomical Board decriminalized dissection in 1884. Baker continued procuring bodies from mostly African American cemeteries because they were rarely guarded. While whites held him in high regard, he was feared and despised by members of the Black community, who would often threaten misbehaving children with the admonition “I’ll send you to Chris Baker” or discourage them from going out alone at night lest they fall victim to the “Body Snatcher.” Baker’s moniker became “The Ghoul of Richmond,” and he and his accomplices would show up at funerals and scope out cemeteries in their search for potential bodies. An uninjured body could bring as much as $10, but one that was damaged brought considerably less. To ward off would-be grave robbers families would sometimes stand watch for the first few nights after a burial until the body decomposed enough to be worthless to thieves. One night in 1892 Baker and his confederates were caught disturbing several graves in a cemetery in Richmond’s East End. Baker was indicted on a felony charge but was granted a pardon by the governor. He died in 1919 in the same basement of the same building on the MCV campus where his family had lived.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Gullah Jack, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Jack Pritchard, also known as Gullah Jack, was born in Angola sometime around the end of the 18th century. He was captured and taken to the island of Zanzibar in 1805, where he was sold to Zephaniah Kingsley. Transported then to the Kingsley plantation in eastern Florida in April 1806, Jack was shortly thereafter sold to Paul Pritchard, a shipbuilder in Charleston, South Carolina. Although little is known of his early life as an enslaved person, he was described as a “conjurer,” or a performer of evocation. His perceived ability to summon spirits and supernatural agents caused people in the African American community to treat him with considerable respect, speaking of him carefully and highly and ceding him tremendous spiritual authority. Coupled with his leadership role in the Methodist church and as an African priest, his understanding of numerous African dialects also bolstered his exceptional influence over Charleston’s Black community. In 1817, Jack met Denmark Vesey, a wealthy former slave whose standing in the Black community was equal to his. Vesey approached Jack with plans for a general slave rebellion in 1821 and convinced him to act as a recruiter for that purpose. Jack used his perceived spiritual powers to come up with elaborate initiation rituals designed to test recruits’ loyalty to Vesey’s cause and frighten other slaves into silence. Vesey and Jack planned to poison Charleston’s water supply, seize weapons at the Charleston State Armory, take control of the city, commandeer the ships in the harbor, and sail to Haiti. However, their plans were betrayed by enslaved individuals who were coerced into confession, and the authorities started gathering conspirators on June 17,1822. Vesey and Pritchard evaded arrest for nearly three weeks but were ultimately captured and sentenced to death along with 34 other conspirators. Gullah Jack, still denying his guilt, was hanged on July 12, 1822. The Denmark Vesey rebellion is considered the largest slave conspiracy in North American history.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Iyá Nassô, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Mãe Senhora of Opô Afonjá also known as Iyá Nassô, in Brazil, was an important priestess of the Candomblé religion. Born in 1780, Iyá is believed to have been a member of the royal family of the Oyo Empire and was taken captive in a war with a neighboring kingdom. Along with her son, she was sold into slavery and shipped to Salvador, Bahia, around 1810. They were baptized and given the names Francesca and Domingo. Little is known of their lives as slaves, but they were able to obtain their freedom by 1822, adopting the surname, Silva. In 1824 she learned that her other son, Thomé, had been enslaved and brought to Bahia. A freedman Jose Pedro Autran, with whom Iyá had developed a relationship, promptly purchased Thomé’s freedom and became his godfather. By 1830, the family had achieved a level of economic security, owning several houses and a few Yoruba-speaking slaves and founding a temple, Ilê Iyá Nassô Oká. Then their destinies changed with a slave revolt in 1835, known as the Malé Rebellion. More than 300 Africans were involved, and Thomé and Domingo were swept up in the arrests. Despite weak evidence, the two were convicted and sentenced to prison. Iyá appealed for their sentence to be commuted to deportation, offering to pay their passage, and swearing to follow them, never to return to Brazil. Her request was granted, and in the final months of 1837 she, her husband, her sons, and around 10 of their slaves departed for West Africa. The family settled in present-day Benin, where they were offered land to establish a religious community. After two years, one of their slaves, Marcelina, returned to Bahia to assume leadership of the temple Iyá had founded. Iyá died in Benin sometime before 1859. She is widely credited with establishing Candomblé in Brazil.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

John Horse, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

John Horse, also known as Juan Caballo, or Cavallo, was a man of mixed ancestry who was described as a “Black Seminole leader.” The Seminoles were a small tribe of Native Americans who held some slaves and allowed escaped African American slaves to take refuge on their land in north central Florida. John was born in 1812 to a Seminole trader named Charley Cavallo; his mother was an enslaved woman whom Charley had acquired during his travels. By all accounts, it appears that neither John nor his sister, Juana, were ever treated as slaves. John’s early years were spent in mostly Black settlements overseen by the Alachua band of the Oconee Seminoles. After the War of 1812, General Andrew Jackson raided the settlements on several occasions, kidnapping Black people for removal to markets and plantations to the north. During the First Seminole War (1817–1818) John’s family was displaced and fled south toward the Tampa Bay area. As an adolescent he had many interactions with American troops and came to understand the culture. The Second Seminole War (1835–1842) began when American settlers pressured the army to remove tribes from lands for white settlement. John was a field officer on the Seminole side. Outnumbered and facing mounting losses, John concluded that the conflict was unwinnable and surrendered to U.S. forces. Because of his facility for languages, he became the translator for the negotiations. The Black Seminoles received promises of freedom if they would cease hostilities and accept resettlement in territories west of the Mississippi. John traveled to Washington D.C. on several occasions to advocate for a separate land grant for the Seminoles but without success. He went to Mexico City and was granted land in the state of Coahuila in return for a pledge to repel invaders from Texas. In 1882, John faced a crisis when local landowners attempted to take the property the Mexican government had given to the Seminole settlers. John was making another trip to Mexico City to reaffirm their land grant but was never heard from again; it’s commonly believed died during the journey.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Letitia Munson, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Letitia Munson, also known as Letitia Leeney, was born into slavery on a North Carolina plantation in 1820. Her master had her trained in the healing arts when she became an adult, and she spent five years studying practical medicine and herbal remedies with doctors and Native Americans. In 1861, she gained her freedom and settled in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada, with her husband, son, and daughter. By the end of the 1860s, she had established her reputation as a healer, fortune teller, and confidante of women with unwanted pregnancies. She would often advise them to have their children in the United States, taking advantage of poorhouses where they could give birth anonymously. She had a small house on her property where she would occasionally board pregnant women seeking privacy. Ellen Weingardner, a local hotel worker, had come to Munson in 1878 for the delivery of her daughter. In September of 1882, again pregnant, Weingardner spent the night in Munson’s boarding house. On the morning of the 16th, Weingardner was found dead in a pool of blood, apparently the victim of a late-term abortion. Munson’s home was searched, and tools were discovered that could be used to carry out an abortion. Munson was arrested on the charge of procuring a miscarriage. At the trial Munson’s attorney argued that Weingardner had died of a self-inflicted abortion, an assertion supported to some extent by the results of the autopsy. An all-white, all-male jury found her not guilty, but the press was unrelenting in then their assertion that Munson had killed Weingardner, and the scandal made her a social outcast. The place and date of her death are unknown.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Lope Martín, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Lope Martín was born in 1520 in Lagos, Portugal, to parents who are believed to have been enslaved. As a young man he worked the city docks, loading, unloading, and repairing ships. Eventually he moved to Spain and mastered the Andalusian dialect to the point where he convinced people he was a native Spaniard. He enrolled in classes to become a ship’s navigator, the highest position a Black man could attain, becoming one of the best pilots in Spain. King Phillip II of Spain was locked in an intense competition with Portugal for the lucrative Asian markets. Martín’s navigational abilities had not gone unnoticed by the king, and he selected him to pilot the San Lucas, the smallest of four ships he had secretly commissioned to establish trade in the Philippines. The fleet cast off on November 21,1564, from Barra de Navidad, Mexico, under the command of Miguel López de Legazpi. Somewhere in the mid-Pacific, a storm separated the San Lucas from the rest of the fleet. The ship’s captain, Alonso de Arellano, made the decision to continue alone, expecting that the rest of the fleet would either catch up or they would be reunited in the Philippines. After a few months of searching for Legazpi and the rest of the fleet, Arellano decided to return to Mexico. During the four-month-long voyage, the ship was plagued by rats, food shortages, and disease, and they were forced to use clothes and blankets to repair the sails. Upon arriving at Barra de Navidad on August 9, 1565, they were celebrated as the first to make the transpacific crossing. Two months later, Legazpi and the fleet arrived, and he immediately disputed Martín’s accomplishments, alleging he had falsified his voyage and accusing him of treason. The maritime officials conspired to send Martín on a resupply mission to the Philippines, giving him a sealed envelope to be presented to the magistrate. Martín surmised that he would probably be killed if he were to land at any Spanish outpost, and it is speculated that he retired to an island in Polynesia.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Madison Washington, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Madison Washington, chafing against enslavement throughout his early life, was determined to rebel against the captivity he was born into near Richmond, Virginia, around 1815. He resolved to gain his freedom, along with that of his wife, Susan. With her cooperation, he devised a plan that would enable him to escape and then raise enough money to purchase her freedom. In 1840 he made good his escape and migrated to Canada, where he was able to secure employment on a farm and where he learned to read and write. In 1841, he stealthily returned to Virginia, hiding out in the forest near the plantation where his wife was being held. He was captured by slave hunters, and he and 135 other enslaved individuals were put aboard the schooner Creole bound for the slave market in New Orleans. On the night of November 7, 1841, he and 17 companions onboard rebelled, killing the slave trader John R. Hewell and overwhelming the crew. Up to this point, the men and women had been kept apart. In a happy coincidence, Washington’s wife had been among the slaves on the ship, and the couple had an emotional reunion. Upon gaining control of the ship, they forced the crew to sail to Nassau, Bahamas, a British colony. The British Empire had outlawed slavery in 1833, and despite American protest, the British declared the slaves lawfully free. Washington and 17 of his co-conspirators were held for six months on charges of mutiny but were freed by the Admiralty Court in April of 1842. The British compensated the United States $110,000 for its loss of property. Curiously, five of the enslaved passengers elected to remain on the Creole and were returned to the U.S. and slavery. Washington’s ordeal was recounted by Frederick Douglass in his 1852 novella The Heroic Slave, followed closely by an account by African American author William Wells Brown. The Creole slave revolt is considered the first and most successful in U.S. history.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz, 2023

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz was born in 1719, a member of the Coura tribe, near Lagos, Nigeria. She was enslaved and taken to Rio de Janeiro in 1725 at age six. She was sold to the Inficcionada Mining Company in 1733 and forced to provide sex for 77 enslaved miners. At age 29, she started having supernatural visions and suffering from an illness characterized by abdominal pain, which she claimed was caused by demonic possession. She testified to ecclesiastical authorities to being possessed by evil spirits and received regular exorcisms from Francisco Goncalves Lopes, a Portuguese priest known as the “Scourge of Demons.” Rosa and Francisco were denounced as lovers and persecuted by the Inquisition. Released from prison in 1748, Rosa gave up prostitution and adopted the name Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz after Saint Mary of Egypt, a fifth-century prostitute turned saint. She became a devout Catholic, but often incorporated elements of African religion in her practice. The bishop of Mariana, suspicious of her growing influence over the enslaved, had her severely flogged, resulting in partial paralysis on her right side. Father Lopes was able to buy her freedom, and the pair moved back to Rio, where her visions became more frequent and where she learned to read and write. She is credited as the first Afro-Brazilian to have written a book, The Sacred Theology of Love of God Brilliant Light of Pilgrim Souls. She founded the Retreat of Our Lady of Labor, a sisterhood made up of former Black prostitutes, as well as the Convent of Our Lady of Childbirth. In 1762, she and Lopes were arrested by the Inquisition for participating in a heretical cult and falsely claiming to have visions. They were imprisoned in Rio for a year and in 1763 appeared before a tribunal in Lisbon. They were interrogated, and Lopes confessed to being deceived by Rosa, but she declared her visions to be true. Subsequently she worked in the kitchen of the Inquisition, where she died on October 12,1771, of natural causes.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Califia, 2022

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

30 x 56 in.

Califia (c. 1510) is the mythical Black warrior Queen and inspiring character in Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo’s 16th century epic poem, Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián). In Montalvo’s tale, Queen Califia rules on the fabled island of California, a utopia brimming with pearls and gold and inhabited solely by her menacing army of Black Amazon women. Commanding a Naval fleet and an aerial flock of five-hundred winged Griffins, the pagan Queen is a fierce adversary for the Crusaders but is eventually conquered, converted to Christianity and married off to a chivalrous Spaniard. She returns to California with her husband to establish a new Christian dynasty as further adventures ensue. Familiar with Montalvo’s novel, when Spanish explorers, under the command of Hernán Cortés, learned of an island off the coast of western Mexico rumored to be ruled by Black Amazon women, they named it California. This stuck as the state’s namesake even after the “island” was discovered to be a peninsula, now known as Baja California Peninsula.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Jean Jacques Dessalines, 2022

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Jean Jacques Dessalines, born into slavery on September 20, 1758, Jean Jacques Dessalines grew up on the Cormier plantation in what was then the island of St. Domingue (Haiti) and adopted the surname of his owner, Henri Duclos. In his 20s he was purchased by a freeman of color named Dessalines and worked as a sugarcane laborer for three years before gaining his freedom and retaining his former master’s surname. In 1791, a slave uprising—spurred by the turmoil of the French Revolution—spread across a large area on the north of the island. Many plantations were destroyed, and there was such a high mortality rate among enslaved people that the planters had to import more captured West Africans. Dessalines joined the rebellion. He distinguished himself as a lieutenant of Toussaint-Louverture, the Black leader of the revolt, who established himself as the governor general of St. Domingue with nominal allegiance to revolutionary France. In 1802 the Haitian Revolution was suppressed by French expeditionary forces sent by Napoleon Bonaparte with the intention of reconquering the island and reinstituting slavery. Toussaint was apprehended, taken back to France, imprisoned, and died in captivity. Dessalines, however, succeeded in expelling the French from St. Domingue on January 1,1804, and declared the island of Hispaniola a free and independent country under the Arawak name Haiti. In 1803, Dessalines had written to President Thomas Jefferson pointing out the similarity of motives undergirding the American Revolutionary War: “Haitians are tired of paying with our blood the price of blind allegiance to a mother country that cuts our children’s throats,” Dessalines wrote. Jefferson, a slave owner himself, never responded. Dessalines continued many of Toussaint’s policies, the most controversial of which was confiscation of all land owned by white people and the prohibition of any land ownership by whites. His reign as Haiti’s emperor became increasingly autocratic, and in 1804 he ordered what came to be known as the Haitian Massacre, designed to purge the island of the French. It is estimated that between 3,000 and 5,000 men, women, and children were put to death in a genocide that reverberated with slave owners throughout the Western Hemisphere. Resistance to Dessalines’ dictatorship grew among the mulatto elites, and he was killed trying to put down a revolt in October of 1806. Despite his atrocities, Dessalines is considered one of the founding fathers of the country and the leader of the most successful slave rebellion in history.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Moses Williams, 2022

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Moses Williams (1775 – 1825) a former slave, Moses Williams was arguably the first African American to work as a professional artist. Williams became known for his cut-paper silhouette portraits of his white patrons. The technique of cut-paper profiles was a popular method of souvenir portraiture during the 19th century, which made them accessible tokens of conspicuous consumption for a new leisure class. Utilizing a new technology, the physiognotrace, Moses traced his sitter’s profiles which he would then painstakingly cut out. Ironically, as an infant Williams and his family were traded to Philadelphia artist Charles Willson Peale as partial payment for a plantation owner’s portrait. In 1780, Williams’ parents were freed by Pennsylvania’s Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, but the Act required Williams, who was only eleven, to remain under bondage until he turned twenty-eight. Williams thus grew up amongst Peale and his seventeen children. Peale instructed his progeny in “fine-art” painting while relegating Williams to what was considered the lower craft of paper cut-outs. Once of age, Williams was freed and went on to establish a relatively successful career as a silhouettist at Peale’s museum.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Redoshi, 2022

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Redoshi (c. 1848-1937) was born in the Kingdom of Dahomey, in western Africa, (now southern Benin). She was reported to be the daughter of a regional chief of the Dahomey people, but was captured by slavers around 1860 and transported with 110 other captured Africans to Alabama on the Clotilda, the last illegal slave ship to make the transatlantic voyage to the U.S. Upon arrival in Mobile, Redoshi was paired with an African man from another tribe and though she was only 12, they were sold as a couple. Redoshi is the only known female transatlantic slavery survivor to have been filmed and interviewed for a newspaper, living to age 89 or 110 (reports conflict). Redoshi survived her travails – the nightmarish journey on the slave ship; slavery; the imposition of Jim Crow laws and enough into the Great Depression so that she was able become acquainted with people active in the Civil Rights Movement. Her life was recounted by Zora Neal Hurston in an article written in 1928.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Balthazar, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Balthazar (54 BC – 55 AD), one of the three biblical ‘magi’ or ‘wise men,’ King Balthazar gave the highly prized gift of liquid myrrh to the Baby Jesus upon his birth. Balthazar was an African King and described in the 8th century by Pseudo-Bede as being “[of] black complexion, with [a] heavy beard,” and yet it would be one thousand years before artists began representing him as a Black African emerged, coinciding with the beginning of the Portuguese slave trade on the west coast of Africa. In Greenfield’s depiction, an observatory alludes to his scholarship in astronomy and the star of Bethlehem, which guided the Three Wise Men to the manger.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Celia, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Celia (unknown-1855) was a fourteen year old girl when she was purchased in Missouri by enslaver Robert Newsom, sometime in 1851. Soon thereafter, Newsom’s wife died and he turned his attention to Celia. He saw her as nothing more than a sex object, and raped her repeatedly over the next four years. She bore him one, possibly two, daughters and was pregnant again in 1855. Celia was in a relationship with another enslaved man, named George, and it was unclear who the father might be. George urged her to resist Newsom’s advances and she appealed to his daughters to intercede on her behalf but to no avail. One night when Newsom came to her cabin, Celia bashed his skull in with a log. That night she burned his body in the fireplace and carefully crushed his bones. The next morning she convinced his grandson to scatter his ashes by offering him some walnuts. After a few days of questioning, Celia finally confessed. The trial lasted three months while her legal status, as a person or as property, was vigorously debated. Under Missouri law, a woman was allowed to kill anyone who tried to take them by force, so that if Celia could establish that she was a “woman” under the law, she could invoke its self-defense protections. But because Celia was enslaved, it was determined that she was property and not a person, and thus could not avail herself or any defense. Her child was stillborn and she was hanged.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Nancy Green, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Although born into slavery in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, on March 4, 1834, Nancy Green was able to obtain her freedom in her early 20s. She worked as a nanny and cook for the Charles Morehead Walker family of Chicago for two generations. She had been married and had given birth to as many as four children, but all had been lost by the end of the Civil War. On the recommendation of Walker’s son, who had become a judge, Nancy was hired by the R. T. Davis Milling Company of St. Joseph, Missouri, to promote their pancake mix. The endorsement of Black cooks for food products was considered an important tool in merchandising. Most people had come to trust the stereotype as a culinary stamp of approval. Nancy adopted the persona of “Aunt Jemima,” a character taken from a minstrel song. She was hired for the sole purpose of promoting their pancake mix, and in 1893 she made her debut at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago singing songs and telling tales of “the Old South.” It was reported that she sold over 50,000 boxes of the mix at the Exposition, which led to 20 years of personal appearances and promotional tours. Contrary to perceptions, Green never realized riches from her time under contract and in later years was still working as a residential housekeeper, living with nieces and nephews in the Chicago area. She used her celebrity to advocate for the poor and in favor of social justice. Nancy Green died when she was struck by a car on August 30,1923. The moniker “Aunt Jemima” was adopted by subsequent spokeswomen for the product, including Agnes Moody, Lillian Richards, and Anna Short Harrington.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Nanny of the Maroons, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Nanny of the Maroons was born around 1680 into the Akan community, who were originally enslaved in present-day Ghana, but there are conflicting reports as to whether she was kidnapped in Africa or born in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. At any rate, she was enslaved in the first decade of the 18th century and escaped. Nanny became the leader of Jamaica’s Windward Maroons, while her brother led a group called the Leeward Maroons. Using guerilla tactics, they harassed British plantation owners and soldiers with such tenacity as to force the British to sue for peace. In 1738, and again in1739, Nanny and Maroon leader Cudjoe declared their autonomy from the British Crown, and in a 1740 treaty the British accepted their terms. A land grant in 1741 ceded 500 acres to the Maroons, and the area enjoys a degree of autonomy to this day. While she had no children, every true-born Maroon claims her as part of their ancestry. Among the many oral histories and colonial writings, Nanny was said to employ the practice of “Obeah,” a British term for West African witchcraft. The British attributed her military success to supernatural powers. One of the more outlandish abilities ascribed to her was that she could catch bullets, both with her hands and her buttocks, or even redirect them at the people who shot at her. Accounts of her death are shrouded in as much mystery as surrounded her origins, ranging from her being killed by her brother to dying of natural causes as an old woman in the 1760s.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Queen Nzingha Mbande, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Queen Nzingha Mbande (1583-1663) was queen of the Ambundu kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, located in present day northern Angola. Born in 1583 she received military and political training as a child. She ruled during the growth of the Portuguese slave trade and fought against the Portuguese for the independence of her kingdom in a reign that lasted 37 years. She was known to carry a hatchet into battle and knew how to use it. Inheriting rule of Ndongo in 1624, Queen Nzingha Mbande allied herself with the Portuguese which simultaneously halted Portuguese and African slave raiding in the region. In order to achieve this, Nzingha had herself baptized with the Portuguese colonial governor serving as godfather. Nonetheless, she was soon betrayed by the Portuguese, and was forced to flee and to reorganize her militia. She adopted a form of military organization known as kilombo, in which youths renounced family ties and were raised communally in militias. By the time of her death, she had developed her region into a formidable commercial state. Today, she is remembered as the Mother of Angola and protector of her people.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Richard Potter, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Richard Potter (1783-1835) was a magician, hypnotist and ventriloquist in early nineteenth century New England and is widely considered the first African American celebrity. He was born in Massachusetts to a Black mother who had been captured by enslavers along the Guinea coast and a white father. He married a Native American woman and had three children. His son Henry, also called Harry, died at age seven. His next son Richard Jr. had less success than his father as a magician. Richard Sr. was a Mason of the first African Lodge No. 459, purchased land and built a large estate near Andover, New Hampshire. When he died in 1835 his will dictated that he be buried standing upright. Potter’s story intrigued Harry Houdini, who included Potter in his popular Magazine of Magic. His life also inspired Grace Metalious’ character Samuel Peyton in the novel Peyton Place (1956) as the town’s founding father.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Solitude of Guadeloupe, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Solitude of Guadeloupe (1772-1802) “Live free or die,” were Solitude’s last words before being executed in 1802. Solitude was born enslaved in the French West Indies on the island of Guadeloupe. Her mother was an enslaved woman from Africa; her father, a sailor who raped her mother at sea on the voyage from Africa to Guadeloupe. Solitude was freed with the abolition of slavery in 1794, but when Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery in 1799, she was classified as a Maroon, the term for escaped slaves, and joined a group of freedom fighters. They organized as a small army and fought against the French troops with the proclamation, “To the whole universe, the last cry of innocence and despair.” Though a few months pregnant, Solitude fought in the slave resistance and was said to be a fierce and fearless warrior, “who pushed herself and her belly into the heart of the battles,” before she was caught and imprisoned by the French. She was sentenced to death, but due to the fact she was pregnant, and her child would become the property of her enslaver, she was spared hanging until one day after giving birth. She was 30 years old.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

The Tragedy of Margaret Garner, 2022

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

The Tragedy of Margaret Garner (unknown-1858) was an African American woman who fled slavery with her family by crossing the frozen Ohio River on a cold winter’s night. They fled the slave state of Kentucky for the free state of Ohio, taking sanctuary in a house overnight outside Cincinnati before connecting to the underground railroad for the journey north. By next morning however, the house was surrounded by U.S. Marshalls, acting under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, whereby escaped slaves could be apprehended even from free states. Realizing they were caught, Margaret Garner slit her young daughter’s throat and attempted to kill her three other children and herself rather than being returned to slavery. As she would tell the Reverend Henry Bushnell later, “I knew it was better for them to go home to God than back to slavery.” Her subsequent trial was a sensation. Her defense attorney argued that Margaret Garner should be tried for murder in Ohio, “as a person,” (hoping for a pardon from the abolitionist Ohio governor) and not as wayward “property” to be returned (under the Fugitive Slave Act), to her owner and back into slavery. Ultimately, the Federal Act prevailed and she was charged with destruction of property and returned into slavery. Her story served as the inspiration for Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Yasuke, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Yasuke (fl. 1500s) was the first foreign-born man to reach samurai warrior status in 16th century Japan under the daimyo Oda Nobunaga, the first of the three unifiers of Japan. He arrived in Kyoto in 1579 in the service of an Italian Jesuit Missionary and in under one year was in Nobunaga’s ranks. Having some command of the Japanese language allowed Yasuke to converse width Nobunaga and tell the tales of his travels which intrigued the feudal lord. There are no records as to Yasuke’s date or country of birth. Many historians propose he was from Mozambique, others suggest Ethiopia or Nigeria and it is contested as to whether or not he was ever a slave. Nobunaga was captured by a rival warlord in 1582 when he committed the ritual suicide, seppuko; prior to this, he had asked Yasuke to decapitate him and to deliver his head and sword to his son which was a great honor. Little is known about Yasuke after this, but it is believed he was exiled by the winning faction. However, he has been forever memorialized in the Japanese children’s book, Kuro-suke (kuro meaning “black” in Japanese) by Kurusu Yoshio.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Zumbi dos Palmares, 2021

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

20 x 16 in.

Zumbi dos Palmares (1655 – 1695) thought to have been a descendent of central African royalty, Zumbi dos Palmares was an Afro-Brazilian leader who pioneered resistance to the enslavement of Africans by the colonial Portuguese. Zumbi was also the last of the kings of the Quilombo dos Palmares. Quilombos were settlements in Brazil populated by Maroons, the name for people of African descent who had escaped slavery. At its height, Quilombo dos Palmares comprised a confederation of 11 towns, spanned an area in Brazil’s rugged mountainous terrain roughly the size of Portugal and was populated by some 30,000 Maroons. In 1678, after years of conflict with the Palmares, Portuguese Governor, Pedro Almeida, approached king Ganga Zumba, (Zumbi’s uncle), with an olive branch. Almeida offered freedom for all runaway slaves if they would submit to Portuguese rule. While Zumba favored the offer, Zumbi, as commander in chief of the kingdom’s forces, refused. He distrusted the offer and refused to accept freedom while other Africans remained enslaved. Zumbi killed Ganga Zumba and took over as king, continuing Palmares’ resistance for the next 15 years, until the Portuguese launched an aggressive assault in 1694, destroying the kingdom’s central settlement. Zumbi, who had become almost god-like to his followers, was killed by the Portuguese in 1695, in part to dispel notions of his immortality. Today, Zumbi remains a powerful symbol for resistance to slavery and liberation from Brazil’s Portuguese colonists.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio

Saartjie Baartman, 2020

Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel

24 x 24 in.

Saartjie Baartman also known as Sarah Baartman, Black Venus and the Hottentot Princess, was born in 1789 in the eastern part of Cape Colony South Africa. She was a member of the Khoikhoi tribe who, due to their large buttocks were exhibited in freak shows in 19th century Europe. Her status as a tribe member prevented her from being sold as a slave in South Africa.

In 1810, she accompanied her employer to England where he presented her on stage as an oddity under the most humiliating circumstances. On a trip to France she was sold to an animal trainer who forced her to amuse onlookers at the Palais Royal where she came to attention of a professor of comparative anatomy at the Museum of Natural History who was looking for the missing link between animals and humans.

She became an alcoholic, lived in poverty in Paris, eventually resorting to prostitution to survive. After her death from an undetermined inflammatory disease in 1815, she was dissected and her brain, skeleton, genitalia and a plaster cast of her body were put on display at the Museum of Man in Paris. In 2002, her remains were returned to South Africa where she was buried on that country’s National Women’s Day.

Courtesy of Mark Steven Greenfield Studio