University Hall was built with slave labor, panelists said in a discussion held Monday night by the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.
This and other rarely discussed facts - slaves who worked on the project were "donated" for a certain amount of labor from contributors, the most common point of departure for slave ships was Rhode Island - were the focus of the latest in the series of lectures sponsored by the committee.
The event, which almost filled Salomon 001, featured three speakers - Newport Chamber of Commerce Director Keith Stokes, Professor of American Civilization and University Curator Robert Emlen and Rachel Chevrons GS.
Chevrons, who is writing a dissertation about the Rhode Island slave trade, pointed to little-known facts and statistics about the role of slavery in the Ocean State. While it is true that Rhode Island "was a smaller player in terms of the slave trade as a whole," she said, it was actually a prominent part of the American trade.
Rhode Island was the most common point of departure for slave ships. This created "intricate links" in both the economy and community, she said, directly or indirectly involving colonists of diverse social statuses and professions.
Chevrons concluded by saying that confronting Rhode Island's role in slavery "may make our historical burden far greater (but that is) one of the keys to moving forward."
Emlen described the racially integrated construction crew that built University Hall, saying that the reality of slave labor in the foundation of the University is "virtually unimaginable to those of us who know Brown in the 21st century." After the Corporation of what would become Brown University approved the structure, a crew of laborers including whites, slaves and free blacks was assembled.
Emlen pointed also to the rarity of historical records that explicitly document slave labor and demonstrated the need to "read between the lines" to assess material and visual documents, such as payment bills and gravestones, in order to comprehend what could not be written down. Using slides to demonstrate the process of making inferences, Emlen pointed to clues such as the absence of a worker's last name or the payment to a white colonist for a black man's labor as ways of analyzing a practice "so remarkable that it has passed almost unrecorded."
A member of the board of directors of the Newport Historical Society and a national lecturer on early African history in New England, Stokes drew material from his current research and restoration project: "A Visual Remembrance: African Slave Markers in Colonial Newport." Stokes began his discussion by describing the experience of learning about slavery in his fifth-grade class in Newport and having "every single kid in that class look at me as if I were the authority" because he is African-American.
In his historical work, Stokes said, he has tried to gain knowledge by focusing on the humanity of Africans in the colonies. He said he prefers to analyze the complex lives of individuals and to avoid excessive attention to the slave-master relation. He said also that he tries to "allow these markers to speak for themselves." Stokes showed slides of some of the 310 existing African gravestones in Newport as well as prominent buildings built by slave laborers in Newport.
Maintaining the importance of preserving the buildings, Stokes also asked, "Shouldn't we also preserve the memory of the people who made these colonial masterpieces?" He concluded by reiterating the importance of a look into the humanity of Africans that extends beyond their captivity, saying the discussion about the role of slave labor is "not an assignment of guilt, not a controversial discussion, but a celebration" of remarkable lives and their legacies.
The diversity of perspectives represented during the question-and-answer period reflected the committee's desire for open communication - those who responded included a member of the Nation of Islam, a professor at Northern Kentucky University, a teacher in the Providence public school system and a member of the Class of 1955.
Delores Walters, assistant professor of sociology, anthropology and philosophy at Northern Kentucky University as well as a research specialist with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, raised questions about relationships between slave masters and women and the unequal roles of slaves in colonial religious life. Stokes responded by pointing out that while sexual relations between masters and slave women occurred, the more common type of interracial relationship was that between blacks and Native Americans. He also confirmed the inequality of Africans in the church, pointing to early practices of segregation in those spaces.
Speaking with extreme passion, a member of the Nation of Islam said he thought panel members were downplaying "the pain and suffering that goes with the fabric of slavery." He said, "If I hadn't done my own research, I might be wondering: What's all the hype about?"
Stokes responded by saying that he appreciated the personal feeling. He said that he intended to focus on the awe-inspiring stories of slaves' lives because "it is so invaluable to present the humanity of an oppressed people (and recognize) the extraordinary survival of these lives."
The panel "took me down memory lane," said Providence resident William Atwater. "They certainly never taught me in school. ... I had to do my own digging."
