Newspapers advertising slaves for sale, logs of slave-trading vessels and personal notes from the papers of abolitionist Moses Brown are among the documents on display at the John Carter Brown Library this spring. The exhibit, which began in February and runs until May, accompanies the report of the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.
The documents illustrate a chronological history of the University's ties to slavery, including the Brown family's history and Rhode Island's role in the slave trade. A guide based on the slavery and justice report, which was released in October, narrates this history, and many of the documents on display were used by the slavery and justice committee in its research on the University's ties to slavery.
The exhibition begins with a first-hand account from 1638 of the Pequot War, when New Englanders exchanged captured Native Americans for black slaves from the West Indies. Rhode Island documents include a 1652 ban on owning a slave for "more than 10 years" and a 1774 state census of Rhode Island residents, broken down by race.
Also on display are records of trade deals and excerpts from the ship log book of the Sally, the ship owned by the Brown family. The Sally's only involvement in the slave trade, a 1764 voyage, led to the death of 108 Africans on their way from Africa. According to the exhibit guide, the journey was "the most lethal slaving voyage ever launched from Rhode Island."
University documents include a 1763 draft of the College Charter by Ezra Stiles, who was later president of Yale University, and 1770 architectural plans of University Hall. The exhibition also includes letters and essays written by prominent colonial and early American abolitionists, including Brown family member Moses Brown.
"It is our job and mission to save and provide access to these documents in perpetuity," said Richard Ring, one of the exhibit's curators and the references and acquisitions librarian for the John Carter Brown library. "When we heard the report was going to come out ... we decided that we would try to give the Brown community, and people in general, an idea of the kind of documents the report might be based on."
Ring compiled the material and wrote the accompanying narrative in the exhibition handout.
Ring estimated that fewer than 50 people have been through the exhibit, but he said, in general, "These exhibitions are, for the most part, staff exercises. The room really doesn't support high traffic ... the exhibitions primarily, while a nod to the public, exist as a staff exercise for the researchers to get to know the collection better."
The John Carter Brown Library hopes to make all of its exhibitions available online, but Ring said he is not sure how soon that will happen.
Associate Professor of History James Campbell, who chaired the slavery and justice committee, said the exhibition's greatest value is in providing visitors contact with primary source documents.
"We can read about mortality on transatlantic slave voyages, but looking at records of a slave voyage and seeing a particular individual and the way the numbers get tallied touches us much more profoundly than dealing with it in more abstract ways," he said.
Campbell said he was particularly struck by a picture of slaves in the hold of a ship, portraying "the bodies stacked like cordwood" and a woman giving birth.
"The broader point is simply to try to ensure that the aspects of our history that are uncomfortable don't get forgotten or swept under the rug, that we continue to reflect on them, that they do not paralyze us with shame but enrich our sense of society in the present," Campbell said.
By confronting this history, the library exhibition is intended to have a similar effect to the proposed on-campus memorial commemorating the University's ties to slavery, Campbell said.
