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 College of Charleston held a small conference on enslaved and free black anti-slavery, February 8-10, 2019.
February 8 – 10, 2019
College of Charleston
Addlestone Library
Cosponsored by the Carolina Lowcountry in the Atlantic World Program at the College of Charleston 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 College of Charleston (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 Charlestonians 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 (College of Charleston). 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!