Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on the way recent events are helping Americans come to terms with our checkered past.
Twenty-something years ago, I was chatting with a college professor at Prescott Park when the topic turned to American slavery. I noted, having recently interviewed historian Valerie Cunningham, that the first enslaved African in New Hampshire had arrived at this very spot in 1645.
Slavery is a Southern thing
“That can’t be true,” my scholarly companion replied, or something to that effect. He seemed offended by the very idea. “There was no slavery around here. That was a Southern thing,” he corrected.