2019 Conference
The Vesey Conspiracy at 200:
Black Anti-Slavery in the Atlantic World
In preparation for a volume of essays to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the “Denmark Vesey Conspiracy” of 1822, the Carolina Lowcountry in the Atlantic World Program (CLAW) at the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø held a small conference on enslaved and free black anti-slavery, February 8-10, 2019.
February 8 – 10, 2019
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø
Addlestone Library
Cosponsored by the Carolina Lowcountry in the Atlantic World Program at the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø and by Soka University of America
EVENTS SCHEDULE
Friday, February 8
TOUR (PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED)
Stono Rebellion sites: 8:30 am – 12:30 pm
Meet at 8:30 am behind Addlestone Library at the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø (205 Calhoun St.)
REGISTRATION OPEN: Noon – 2pm (Addlestone 127)
WELCOME TO THE COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON by Brian McGee (Provost): 2:00pm
Panel 1 – 2:15pm – 3:45pm Survivance & Memory 1 (Addlestone 227)
Sarah Stegeman – Imagined Africa in Nineteenth-Century America
Terri L. Snyder – Slavery, Resistance, and Memory in South Carolina and Georgia
Ethan Kytle and Blain Roberts – Freedom Fighter or Attila the Hun? How ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøians Remembered Vesey, 1822-2014
Panel 2 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm: Comparative Free Black Abolition (Addlestone 227)
Kelli Cardenas Walsh – Resistance to slavery by two freemen from North Carolina
Maria Alejandra Aguilar Dornelles – Heroes of Freedom: Leadership and Black heroism in Pre-Abolition Rio de Janeiro
Lucien Holness – African American Antislavery Activism in Southwestern Pennsylvania
RECEPTION: 5:45 – 8:30: Reception & Keynote (Addlestone Library, third floor)
Keynote: “Denmark Vesey, South Carolina, and Haiti: Borne, Bound and Battered by the Common Wind”
Bernard Powers, PhD
Introduction by Simon Lewis
Saturday, February 9
Breakfast and Late Registration – 8:00am – 9:00am (Addlestone 127)
Panel 3 – 9:00am – 10:30am: Knowing Legacies (Addlestone 227)
Jessica S. Samuel – African American Youth and Overlooked Traditional Ways of Knowing
Rachel C. Kirby – Painting Away the Shackles of Slavery: Exploring Jonathan Green’s Depictions of an “Unenslaved” Lowcountry
Aretha Phiri – Resisting Legacies of Enslavement: A Literary Analysis
Panel 4 – 10:45 – 12:15pm: Black Fugitivity in the Contemporary World (Addlestone 227)
Jesse Olsavsky – Fugitive Slaves, Abolitionists, and the Critique of the Prison
Cheryl E. Mango – Black Radicalism, Black Consciousness, Black History, and Black YouTube
Karen Salt & Lisa Robinson – Resistance to Memory: Movement Loss, Protest Ghosts, & the Racial Life of Fugitivity.
Boxed Lunch Plenary – 12:30pm – 2:00pm: “Black Resistance to Slavery and Racism: American and African Histories” (Addlestone 227)
Brandon Byrd (Vanderbilt), Douglas Egerton (Le Moyne), Ada Ferrer (NYU), Samuel Ntewusu (University of Ghana), Manisha Sinha (University of Connecticut-Storrs), and Rebecca Shumway (ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø). James Spady (Soka University, chair). Comment by attendees.
Panel 5 – 2:15pm – 3:45pm: Surivance & Memory (Addlestone 227)
Patrick H. Breen – On Resistance
William D. Jones – The Irony of St. Malo: Memories of Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Louisiana
Douglas R. Egerton – “To See What He Could Do for His Fellow Creatures”: Enslaved Women, Families, and Survivors in North American Slave Conspiracies
Comment: Jason Sharples
Panel 6 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm: Re-writing Slave Resistance (Addlestone 227)
Anita Rupprect & Cathy Bergin – Writing Reparative Histories of Connection: The 1831 Tortola Slave Conspiracy in the Atlantic World
Brent Morris – “The Celebrated bandit Joe”: Uncovering Forest Joe’s Lowcountry Maroon Campaign of 1821-1823
Susanna Ashton – The White Preacher & the Black Slave Lecturer
Robert L. Paquette – Before Denmark Vesey: Federalists and ‘French Negroes’ in the Politics of Lowcountry South Carolina
KEYNOTE: 7:00pm (Addlestone Library, third floor)
Introductory remarks: James Spady
Keynote: Michael Moore (Executive Director of the International African American Museum)
Sunday, February 10: Tours and Special Events (some details TBA)
Morning
Visit: Sunday service at Mother Emanuel
Afternoon
Special event: Denmark Vesey’s Garden book event 2:00pm in the new George C. McDaniel Education Center at Drayton Hall. This event is now SOLD OUT!