Royall House & Slave Quarters

There are more than 700 Confederate monuments in America's public spaces, along with hundreds of schools, streets, and communities named for Confederate icons. In his presentation "Confederate Monuments and the Memory of Slavery, historian Kevin Levin will discuss the historical origins of these monuments - their connection to "Lost Cause" remembrance of the Civil War and the Jim Crow era of the 20th century, and how the divisive current debate over their future connects to our nation's memory of slavery.…

The Royall House & Slave Quarters presents a talk by historian Kate Clifford Larson, author of the book, "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero." Known widely as a simple and courageous mother figure, in fact Harriet Tubman was an intelligent, crafty, fearless visionary who transcended assumptions about black women’s abilities, leading scores of enslaved people to freedom. Drawing from a trove of primary documents as well as extensive genealogical research, Larson's book reveals Tubman as a…

Like many northern commercial institutions, Brooks Brothers — celebrating its bicentennial this year — benefited from the institution of slavery. The storied clothier’s livery department provided garments for coachmen, footmen, and chauffeurs in wealthy American households, including those in the antebellum South. In an illustrated talk, Jonathan Michael Square, a writer and historian specializing in the fashion and visual culture of the African Diaspora, will explore this intriguing connection. Dr. Square is currently a lecturer on history and literature at…

The Royall House and Slave Quarters welcomes historian Kellie Carter Jackson for a talk on her forthcoming book, "Force and Freedom." From its origins in the 1750s, the white-led American abolitionist movement adhered to principles of "moral suasion" and nonviolent resistance as both religious tenet and political strategy. But by the 1850s, the population of enslaved Americans had increased exponentially, and such legislative efforts as the Fugitive Slave Act and the Supreme Court's 1857 ruling in the Dred Scott case…

The Royall House & Slave Quarters presents the public program "Unsilenced from the Inside: Recovering Histories of Slavery from a Florida Prison." Since 2018, several men incarcerated at Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach have collected, transcribed, and analyzed archival documents regarding the history of enslavement on a former plantation located 30 miles from the prison. These incarcerated researchers have built an archive that testifies to the lives of enslaved men and women on the nearby Spring Garden Plantation, now…

The Royall House & Slave Quarters welcomes historian Jared Ross Hardesty to speak about his forthcoming book, "Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England." Shortly after the first Europeans arrived in 17th-century New England, they began to import Africans and capture the area’s indigenous peoples as slaves. By the eve of the American Revolution, enslaved people comprised only about 4 percent of the population, but slavery had become instrumental to the region’s economy and…

The Royall House & Slave Quarters welcomes historian Kevin M. Levin to speak about his forthcoming book, "Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth." More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Levin argues in his carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone…

The Royall House & Slave Quarters welcomes Tufts University historian Kerri Greenidge to speak about her forthcoming book, "Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter." This long-overdue biography reestablishes William Monroe Trotter’s essential place next to Douglass, Du Bois, and King in the pantheon of American civil rights heroes. William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934), though still virtually unknown to the wider public, was an unlikely American hero. With the stylistic verve of a newspaperman and the unwavering fearlessness of…

Co-editor Dionne Ford and contributor Catherine Sasanov will discuss "Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race & Reconciliation," a collection by writers from a variety of backgrounds — all members of Coming to the Table, a national racial reconciliation organization — recounting their stories of dealing with America’s racial past through their experiences and their family histories. Copies of "Slavery's Descendants" will be available for purchase and signing. Admission is free for Royall House & Slave Quarters members, free for 2…

Due to precautions regarding the coronavirus, the Royall House & Slave Quarters has canceled its talk by Yale history professor Mark Peterson about his new book, "The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865."

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Royall House & Slave Quarters has canceled all tours and programs through April, including this talk by the poet and independent scholar Catherine Sasanov on "The Last & Living Words of Mark: Following the Clues to the Enslaved Man’s Life, Afterlife, and Community."