Hosted by Rice Public Library
Thursday, March 25, 6:00 PM
register here
Rice Public Library in Kittery, Maine presents historian and author, Patricia Q. Wall, to discuss the era of slavery in Southern Maine as revealed in her recently published book, ‘Lives of Consequence: Blacks in Early Kittery & Berwick in the Massachusetts Province of Maine’ (Portsmouth Marine Society Press, Portsmouth, NH, 2017). She will share results of her nearly six years of intense research which banishes old myths of slavery’s rarity here and the belief that such practice was unimportant to old Kittery Parish, its spin-off town of Berwick, and a nearby parish area that is now the Town of Eliot.
Wall’s book reveals more than 200 slave owners and over 500 Africans and persons of mixed African, white, or Native American heritage enslaved in this area. Despite meagerness of local records on nearly all early Blacks, the author was able to piece together a few of their personal stories and will share them in her evening talk.
