Its good to see you all here today. What were going to do is think through some Big Questions about Power Dynamics in american slave societies today. So part of this is like a building on what we talked about last thursday. Last thursday we talked about gabriels conspiracy and we talked about the ways gabriels story reflects the complexity of slavery. Slavery was a relationship between an individuals, a person owned another person. It was complex. With gabriel, we saw some of the ways an enslaved person could enjoy freedom inside their bondage. Today what were going to do is talk through some of the practices of power and our Big Questions for today are broadly about this, right . Well come back to these questions at the end of class. Questions about the ways that labor influenced the lives of enslaved people in the south and the tools that were available to slave people and slave owners in struggles overpower. Slave owners used their power to move massive numbers of enslaved people in
Hi, my name is ashley rogers, im the director of Museum Operations at the whitney plantation and were beginning our today in a historic freedmans church which was built circa 1870 by people who lived on the opposite side of the river in paulina, louisiana. This structure was donated to us by the descendants of the founders of the congregation. They bought the land in 1870. Two parcels of land for the purpose of building a house of worship and in the sale document which we have from the courthouse they named their congregation the antiyoke, or against slavery is important to our story here. And this is a Significant Church for newly freed slaves on the east bank of the river and so it is really important here in talking about the lives of people who saw freedom after the end of the civil war. So we like to start our tour of the whitney plantation here in this building so we could kind of see what happened to people, some of the things that they cared about after the freedom came. Whitne
Lived on the opposite side of the river in paulina, louisiana. This structure was donated to us about 10 years ago by the descendants of the original founders of that congregation. They bought the land in 1870. Two parcels of land for the express purpose of building a house of worship. In the sale document, which we have from the courthouse, they named their structure the anti they named their congregation the antiyoke baptist congregation. That message, being against the yoke or against slavery, is something thats important to our story here. And this is a Significant Church for newly freed slaves on the east bank of the river and so it is really important here in talking about the lives of people who saw freedom after the end of the civil war. So we like to start our tour of the whitney plantation here in this building so we could kind of see what happened to people, some of the things that they cared about after the freedom came. Whitney plantation is the only Plantation Museum in t
Midst to talk about the shop. But first i want to talk about richard bell, scholar, beautiful writer. This book really jumps in with his incredibly human picture of a young by, and from that moment i knew that i was in sure creative hands but he is a remarkable scholar. Educated at cambridge harvard, moved professor at the university of maryland, has won one of the major awards and if theres a round of applause it is for people who are educating the next generation of historical people to have a sense of history and what it means as human beings in the world but also particularly as americans, and somewhere from wells is dedicated to helping us mine that history. He is a 2017 public scholar after the National Endowment for the humanities. And has had fellowships from the Huntington Library in california to cambridge in england and everywhere in between, yale and the library of congress. So this is a mind we want sort of tilling the soil of americas past and helping us come to under and
Celebrate. Rachel swarns for the 72, the families who were enslaved and sold to the American Catholic church in 1838, a group of americas most prominent catholic. Sold 272 enslaved people to their largest mission project, which is now georgetown university. In this groundbreaking, professor swarns follows family through nearly two centuries of indentured and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of, the Catholic Church in the united states. Rachel swarns is a journalist author and associate professor of journalism at new york university, who writes about race and Race Relations as a contributing for the New York Times. Her articles about georgetown universitys roots in slavery touched off a National Conversation about americas universities and their ties to this painful period history. Her work has recognized and supported by National Endowment for the humanities, the four door ford foundation, the Leon Levy Center for biography, the Biographers International organized asia