Category Archives: Uncategorized

My students and I have been pondering a fascinating line in the September 1749 will of Richard Bennett III, who died in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore: Bennett wills to Ann Bell (actually Beall), whom he identifies as “a little girl that lives with me under the care of her aunt theContinue reading ““I give and bequeath to said Ann Beall, the negro girl Bettey that plays with her”: Slavery, Sentimental Kinship, and Slow Violence in British Colonial America, 1749”

What do we know of the Peggy, the slave ship that transported 144 enslaved Africans from The Windward Coast in West Africa in 1770, evidently selling scores of them in the port of Georgetown, Prince George’s County, Maryland, which three decades later became part of the District of Columbia? It would appear that the PeggyContinue reading “The slave ship Peggy in Georgetown Port [DC], 1770”

Building on research by Lisa Fager of the Black Georgetown Foundation and staff members at Dumbarton House, my students and I are researching the life and legacy of Grace (Gracy) Ann Duckett, born c. 1791 in Maryland, deceased July 28, 1874 in Georgetown, District of Columbia. Gracy appears to have spent the majority of herContinue reading “In Search of Grace (“Gracy”) Ann Duckett, c. 1791-1874, enslaved by Samuel and Lydia Whitall of Georgetown”

My students and I are beginning work assisting our collaborator Emily Washines and her relatives in the Yakama Nation (central Washington State) in understanding the life of her cousin Martha Bassett (traditional surname Pochahsquinest). Miss Bassett. who went missing in Chicago in 1967, was searched for by her family for decades. Recent forensic DNA researchContinue reading “In Search of Martha (Pochahsquinest) Bassett (1936-1968) of the Yakama Nation”

In a previous post I mentioned the enslaved man Tom, who escaped from merchant Robert Peter of Georgetown on October 4, 1761. On October 9, 1761 Peter placed the following advertisement in the Maryland Gazette “Rock Creek October 9, 1761. Ran away from the Subscriber in the 4th instant, a very likely Negro Fellow namedContinue reading “In Search of Tom, escaped by Canoe from Georgetown, October 1761”

What do we know of the Peggy, the slave ship that transported 144 enslaved Africans from the Windward Coast in West Africa in 1770, evidently selling scores of captive people in the port of Georgetown (then in Frederick County, Maryland) which three decades later became part of the District of Columbia? It would appear thatContinue reading “The slave ship Peggy in Georgetown Port [DC], 1770”