The Narrative of Primus: A Lineage Woven into American History

The Narrative of Primus uncovers the remarkable, nearly forgotten story of a ten-year-old boy taken from his mother's bedside in West Africa and forced aboard a slave ship bound for America. That boy, Primus, survived the Middle Passage, endured decades of enslavement in colonial Connecticut, raised a family, and-through faith, resilience, and grace-laid a foundation that would ripple across generations. Drawing on rarely cited historical sources-including an embedded first-person narrative hidden since 1824 in the writings of Lydia Sigourney-John Mills reveals Primus as more than a footnote to slavery or a name in a ledger. He restores him as a father, a church member, a scholar of scripture, a community figure, and a man whose voice still echoes across three centuries. Through meticulous archival research, Mills traces the lives of Primus's descendants-from the Revolutionary War, where his son Job fought for American independence while enslaved, through the Civil War, where Sgt.