People as Property: Stories of Northern Colonial Enslavement

FAIN: MN-253265-17

Historic Hudson Valley (Tarrytown, NY 10591-1203)
Ross W. Higgins (Project Director: June 2016 to December 2021)

Production of a website exploring slavery in the colonial North with a focus on the individual stories of enslaved people at Philipsburg Manor, an eighteenth-century historic plantation site.

Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) requests NEH support for the production of a website titled People as Property: Stories of Northern Colonial Enslavement. The site will shed light on the often overlooked history of slavery in the colonial North with a special focus on individual stories as a means to personalize the past. This project is an outgrowth of the NEH-funded reinterpretation of Philipsburg Manor, HHV’s National Historic Landmark in Sleepy Hollow, NY. Probate inventories, runaway slave ads, legal and court documents, slave narratives, and other primary sources related to northern slaveholdings serve as entry points for exploring the human dimensions of slavery. Philipsburg Manor stands as the primary case study augmented by content from several noteworthy historic sites, libraries, academic institutions, and historical societies in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Associated Products

Prizes

Webby
Date: 1/1/2020
Organization: Webby Awards
Abstract: Award for Educational Website