Date: Monday, February 13, 2023
Location: Zoom Virtual Lecture
Time: 7:00 pm (EST)
In December 1752, Thomas Thistlewood, a white Jamaican planter, caught one of an enslaved man named Congo Sam, trying to run away. When Thistlewood challenged him, Congo Sam pulled a machete and ran at him. “I will kill you. I will kill you,” he shouted. Thistlewood screamed for help but none of his watching Black workers moved to intervene. This talk, with University of Maryland historian Dr. Richard Bell, examines the plantation management strategies that produced such violent resistance. It also reveals that extent of slave uprisings in British North America, using the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina as a case study, and explores the lives of those men and women who escaped slavery by disappearing into the forests and swamps of colonial America.
Registration required.
Cost: $15 per household for General Admission; $10 per household for HA Members, Military, and HA Docents
This lecture will be offered virtually by Zoom. Upon registration, you will be sent the link for the video conference to join on the evening of the lecture. If you do not receive your confirmation email after you register, please check your Spam folder, or email Cara Garside at cara.garside@annapolis.org. To learn more about Zoom and to download the app to your computer, visit the Zoom website.
About Our Presenter: Dr. Richard Bell is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland and author of the new book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home. He has won more than a dozen teaching awards, including the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honor for teaching faculty in the Maryland state system. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress and is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar award. He serves as a Trustee of the Maryland Historical Society, as an elected member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and as a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.