Tonight! ABB’s What Happened Here Series | Evicting Black Salem in 1790 at 5:00 pm

Probing the Archives with historian Beth Bower Hosted by Atlantic Black Box Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 5:00 pm ET Register here In December of 1790, the Selectmen of Salem, Massachusetts directed the town constable to notify or “warn” a list of 103 Black Salem households that if they were not “lawful” inhabitants of Salem … Continue reading Tonight! ABB’s What Happened Here Series | Evicting Black Salem in 1790 at 5:00 pm

Building a Better Black Box

By Meadow Dibble What you are looking at is a document chest believed to have belonged to Elijah Cobb (1768–1848), one of New England’s most celebrated sea captains and the founding father of my hometown on Cape Cod. You might even call it a 19th-century black box, since the purpose of this object, like that … Continue reading Building a Better Black Box

Researching Slavery and Black Life in Early New England: An Introduction

By Jared Ross Hardesty Some of the most common questions I receive after giving a talk about my book or a workshop about slavery in New England concern research. Where do you start? What types of sources are available? How accessible are those sources? In this post, I hope to clarify some of these questions … Continue reading Researching Slavery and Black Life in Early New England: An Introduction