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The Role of Slavery in New England Commerce, Industry and Culture to 1860
An NEH Summer Institute for School Teachers
July 17-29, 2011
Providence, RI
Dear Colleague:
We are delighted that you are considering coming to Brown University to participate in our 2011
NEH Summer Institute, “The Role of Slavery in New England Commerce, Industry, and Culture to
1860.” Our Institute is part of NEH’s “We the People” initiative, a program designed to encourage and
enhance the teaching, study, and understanding of American history, culture, and democratic principles.
For two weeks next summer, thirty K-12 teachers, who will be designated NEH Summer Scholars, in
conjunction with a group of leading scholars and public historians, will explore a neglected but crucially
important aspect of early American history—the two-and-a-half-century web of connections between the
rise of New England as a commercial and industrial center and the enslavement of Africans.
To a remarkable degree, slavery was essential to every phase of New England’s development. In
the mid-1600s, New England colonists enslaved native captives following the Pequot and King Philip’s
Wars, and the first African slaves to arrive on New England shores came in exchange for Indians. Rhode
Island was the center of the American slave trade, responsible for more than a thousand slaving voyages
that brought well over 100,000 enslaved Africans to the horrors of Caribbean sugar plantations, to the
rice, indigo and tobacco plantations of the American South and to New England itself. At the same time,
the rise of New England as a maritime power was heavily dependent on the business of provisioning
those Caribbean plantations, and the provisions produced for export were grown on New England and
Middle Colony farms and plantations by slaves. New England’s banking and insurance industries, along
with its iron-making, distilling, and shipbuilding industries, all developed to support the slave and
provisioning trades.
After the American Revolution, the New England states began the slow process of abolishing the
institution of slavery and ending the participation of their citizens in the slave trade. Connecticut and
Rhode Island passed gradual emancipation statutes that made children born to slaves after March 1, 1784,
free when they reached their majority; in the other New England states, new state constitutions and
litigation by slaves seeking freedom under their provisions gradually made slavery unconstitutional. In
1794, the U.S. Congress made it illegal for American citizens to engage in the slave trade, and the
importation of slaves into the United States became illegal in 1808. But by that time, New England
businessmen—some of them the same people who had led the fight against the slave trade and local
slavery—had embraced the manufacture of southern slave-grown cotton. By the mid-19th century, New
England had become an industrial giant, importing cotton from the American South and sending cotton
and woolen textiles back to clothe the slaves who grew it. The New England machine tool industry, too,
reaped large profits on the picks, hoes, axes, and other implements manufactured in New England
factories and shipped south to enable slaves to grow rice and tobacco, and to carve fields out of forests as
the cotton revolution spread westward. At the same time, slavery as a moral issue inflamed New England
politics.
New England’s extensive and complicated relationship with slavery is a crucial part of the
American story that almost never is clearly and comprehensively discussed in American history
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textbooks. But this is an important story, and there is no better place to explore it, and learn how to teach
about it, than in Rhode Island, not only the center of the American slave and provisioning trades, but also
the birthplace of the American industrial revolution. The two-week Institute that we have planned will
include lectures by experts, tours of historic sites associated with these key developments, and guided
explorations of original 18th- and 19th-century print and graphic sources that document this fascinating,
often painful history. Teachers will be able to bring back to their classrooms and departments new
knowledge, new primary documents and images, and fresh ideas and strategies for teaching this sensitive
material, including shared lesson plans.
Some of the essential questions to be explored by the NEH Summer Scholars will include:

How and why did New England become the center of the American slave trade, and how
widespread was involvement in it?

How did enslaved labor fit into the Puritan vision of the “City on a Hill”?

Who owned slaves and who became enslaved?

What was daily life like for enslaved laborers in New England?

How did slavery and the slave trade end in New England, and what was life like for former
slaves?

How could the region that most vigorously opposed Southern slavery build an industrial
empire that depended on it?

What New England businesses were most heavily dependent on Southern slavery?

What is the legacy of New England’s complex historical relationship with slavery?
Participants will also explore the following pedagogical questions:

How can primary materials and images enhance classroom instruction on this topic?

How can online sources and computer-based technologies on this topic make teaching history
more effective?

How can sensitive subjects such as race and racism, slavery, political and social inequality,
and economic disadvantage be discussed in the classroom in ways that respect all
participants’ feelings and personal histories?
Institute Staff
We would like to introduce ourselves as co-directors of the Institute. We are Morgan Grefe,
Director of the Goff Center for Education and Public Programs at the Rhode Island Historical Society
(RIHS), and Joanne Pope Melish, Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. Both of
us have Ph.D.s in American Civilization from Brown University, and in 2009 we co-directed a very
similar NEH Summer Institute for Teachers. Joanne is a specialist in the history of New England slavery,
emancipation, and race, and on the public history of American slavery. She is also the author of
Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780-1860. She has co-directed
three other NEH Summer Institutes and has presented workshops on her specialties for several Teaching
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American History (TAH) and public history programs. While Morgan’s areas of academic expertise have
focused largely on 20th century topics, she specializes in exploring how people remember, interpret and
memorialize controversial history. At the RIHS, Morgan has directed two TAH grants, is currently
directing a third, and has presented at several TAH projects. Both of us have also worked extensively
with Brown University’s Slavery and Justice Committee and The Choices Program on their curriculum
unit, “Forgotten History: New England and the Slave Trade.” We have a strong commitment to public
history and to our nation’s teachers as the most important single source of public history education
Our Institute team includes two other members. Mary O’Connor, a former high school social
studies teacher will serve as the project coordinator. She will be your main point of contact for this
project—answering questions you may have, helping participants to make travel and housing
arrangements, facilitating stipend payments, and making all other Institute arrangements. The team will
be rounded out by a curriculum specialist who will work one-on-one with the participating teachers.
Barbra Bowen, a literacy and reading specialist with a background in classroom teaching and curriculum
design, will fill this role.
The nine other participating scholars and public historians are all outstanding specialists in their
fields. Among them are James T. Campbell, Professor of History at Stanford University and former chair
of Brown University’s Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice; Margaret Newell, Professor of History
at Ohio State University and author of the forthcoming “The Drove of Adam’s Seed”: Indian Slavery in
Colonial New England; and Alexandra Chan, author of Slavery in the Age of Reason: Archaeology at a
New England Farm. The Institute will also include a screening of the award-winning documentary film,
Traces of the Trade: A Story of the Deep North, and a workshop with the filmmaker, Katrina Browne.
Organization of the Institute
Our two-week investigation of the role of slavery in the development of New England will be
divided into six topical areas, each of which will be the focus of one or two days’ sessions: a) the
American/Rhode Island slave trade; b) provisioning the West Indies; c) slavery in New England; d)
gradual emancipation, racism, and abolitionism; e) antebellum New England, the cotton textile industry,
and the “Slave Power”; and f) race and slavery in New England memory. The first three themes focus on
the colonial period, the fourth and fifth on the post-Revolutionary and antebellum periods, and the last on
the evolving memory of slavery and antislavery, and their racial legacies, to the present day.
During the first seven days of the Institute, participants will explore these topics through lectures,
film, readings, site visits, and guided exploration of electronic resources. They will also take part in
pedagogical exercises that will demonstrate practical classroom applications of this information and these
sources and materials.
Each NEH Summer Scholar will meet individually with our Institute team. At least one meeting
will be with one of the co-directors. This will give us an opportunity to get to know each participant a bit
better and to explore their expectations for the Institute, to help us ensure that it will be a valuable
experience for them. A second individual meeting will be with our curriculum specialist, Barbara Bowen,
who will help participants create lesson plans and curriculum materials for use in their own classrooms.
Barbara will help teachers incorporate primary materials discovered in the course of the Institute, along
with information from lectures and readings, into unit plans that will engage students’ interest, satisfy
participants’ own state standards, and meet each teacher’s particular classroom needs.
Collaboration will be an important element of the Institute; while each participant will be asked to
choose a topical area in which to prepare a lesson plan based on primary sources for classroom use,
participants with related topics will be encouraged to work together in small groups to develop their
curriculum materials. The eighth and ninth days of the Institute will be spent working in the RIHS
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Library, the John Carter brown Library, and the computer lab at Brown University’s Rockefeller Library
to create and refine unit plans. The curriculum specialist and co-directors of the Institute will be available
at both sites for consultation and advice.
NEH Summer Scholars will present their unit plans on the last day of the Institute. They also will
be asked to submit their lesson plans to the Institute staff in both a paper and electronic format. In the
fall, all participants will receive a CD with all other lesson plans and curriculum materials on it.
Ultimately, select lessons will be placed on the Institute webpage.
All sessions and meetings for participants, staff, and guest scholars will take place on weekdays,
Monday through Friday each week, usually from 9:00 am through 4:30 pm with a break for lunch
(morning refreshments will be provided beginning at 8:30), leaving most evenings free for study.
Participants will also be free on weekends to explore the historic landscape and beautiful beaches of
Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Readings
In advance of the Institute, we will ask participants to read Complicity: How the North Promoted,
Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery, by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank; Chapter 6 of
Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory, edited by James Oliver Horton and
Lois E. Horton (2006); and the Pulitzer-nominated five-part newspaper series, “The Unrighteous Traffic:
Rhode Island and the Slave Trade,” written by Providence Journal writer Paul Davis. These readings will
provide an overview of the topics we will be discussing.
Additional daily readings will include original documentary sources as well as new and classic
scholarship that will prepare participants for upcoming lectures, site visits, and pedagogical activities.
Credit
For Rhode Island teachers, the RIHS can yield Continuing Education Units (CEUs). For all other
participants, the project team will provide a letter of equivalency that states the content of the two-week
program and the hours spent at the institute. Participants should determine the requirements for receiving
CEUs from their state departments of education and should plan to bring all necessary documentation to
the Institute so that our staff can fill out any additional paperwork.
Accommodations and the city of Providence
All participants will be encouraged to stay on Brown’s campus at the beautiful “Machado
House.” Built in 1912, Machado House (formerly Ellen Dexter Sharp House) is a two and a half story
brick house built in the Elizabethan Revival style. Dedicated in 1989 as Antonio Machado House (in
honor of the Spanish poet), it now houses two of Brown’s “language immersion” programs, Hispanic
House and French House. Located at 87 Prospect Street, Machado House has 3 kitchens, 4 lounges, 2
large common areas, laundry facilities and bike storage. It also has a large patio and private yard. Each
air-conditioned bedroom is equipped with a bed, pillow, desk, dresser, and closet, and private bathrooms
are located on the hall. All rooms are outfitted with linens, and daily towel service is available. (The A/C
can be quite cold, and we can’t control it, so you might want to bring an extra blanket!) It is situated on a
picturesque street well positioned for historic and downtown touring. The charge for these facilities is $55
per night per person for a single room. When you sign up to stay at the dorm, you will be charged for a
minimum of 12 nights ($660) for Sunday, July 17 through Thursday, July 28. You will be welcome to
stay an extra day on either side, for an additional $55 for each night, to accommodate any special travel
needs you might have. You may, of course, elect to stay elsewhere on the night of the 22nd and/or 23rd, but
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you will still be charged for the entire 12 nights for which Machado House rooms have been reserved for
institute participants; in other words, in no case will you be charged less than $660.
For guests who wish to come to Providence with their families, we would recommend staying in
a hotel. The Inn at Brown, which is located at Charlesfield and Power Streets and is air conditioned, is
operated by the university and costs $120 per room (single or double occupancy) per night. Brown’s
residence halls are another possibility, at a charge of $55 per person; these are single rooms, and thus a
couple would pay $110 a night for two dorm rooms, saving only $10 per night over the cost of a room for
both of them at the Inn at Brown. Brown cannot allow children under 18 to stay in any of its residence
halls because the university cannot provide supervision, which they would be legally bound to do.
Providence does not allow overnight street parking, so participants with automobiles will need to
purchase daily parking passes for $9.00 per day.
Participants will receive a temporary Brown I.D. card that will provide access to the residence
halls, eating facilities, the Hillel building (where the Institute will be held) at off hours, and Brown’s
libraries. Teachers will be able to use Brown’s Rockefeller Library and its computing stations. However,
both Hillel and Machado House also have wireless access, and participants will all receive passwords to
access the system—so participants will be able to use their own laptops. We will not provide participants
with new project-based email accounts. For primary research, participants will be able to use the
materials in the collections of the RIHS library, a private, closed-stack library.
The Brown campus is within easy walking distance of downtown Providence. On many Saturday
evenings in the summer, participants may experience the world-renowned art installation known as
WaterFire, a beautiful and dramatic lighting of the Providence River that brings haunting music, public
performances, food vendors, and up to 80,000 people to Providence’s riverfront. To learn more, go to
www.waterfire.org.
The RIHS also hosts an array of historic walking tours that teachers can enjoy on their Saturday
off. To find out more about RIHS programs, check out www.rihs.org. And one of the best things about
staying in Providence is its easy proximity to both Boston and Newport—each offering a wealth of
historic sites and each is an easy drive or bus ride.
Stipend
The NEH has authorized a $2100 stipend to help cover costs for each participant. This stipend
should be used for travel, lodging, food, and books. We realize that with the increased cost of travel, this
can be difficult, so we have found reasonably priced housing and will provide a comprehensive list of
food sources that will cover a broad range of price points and food options for prospective participants.
Teachers who sign up to stay at the Machado House will have the cost deducted from their stipends
automatically, with participants’ written permission. They will receive one half of the remaining amount
of their stipends when they arrive at Brown for the Institute and the other half upon completion.
Applicant Profile and Process
We hope to have a fascinating mix of professionals participating in this Institute. For that reason,
we welcome a wide variety of qualifications. We especially courage applications from social studies
teachers who wish to enrich their history, civics, and social studies curricula with this in-depth study of
New England’s role in the slave trade and the perpetuation of slavery. Much of the material in this
Institute will lend itself most easily to middle and high school curricula, but elementary school teachers
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may make a compelling case for their participation. We urge any teacher who is deeply intrigued by this
topic, no matter what their specialization, to apply.
Application information is included in this letter. Completed applications should be postmarked
no later than March 1, 2011, and should be addressed as follows:
Dr. C. Morgan Grefe
NEH Grant Administrator
Rhode Island Historical Society
110 Benevolent Street
Providence, RI 02906
Perhaps the most important part of the application is the essay that must be submitted as part of
the complete application. This essay should include any personal or academic information that is
relevant; your reasons for applying to this particular Institute; your specific personal and intellectual
interest in the topic; your qualifications to do the work of the Institute and make a contribution to it; what
you hope to accomplish by participation, including any individual research and writing projects that are
relevant to it; and the relationship between the topic of this Institute and your own teaching.
Each application must include two letters of reference. Please ask each of your referees to sign
his or her name across the seal on the back of the envelope containing the letter, and enclose the letters
with your application. Our Institute staff will review all applications in March and will inform you of the
committee’s decision on April 1.
Again, if you have further questions, do not hesitate to get in touch with us. For questions about
the subject matter and scope of the Institute, email or call Morgan Grefe or Joanne Melish. Morgan Grefe
can be most easily reached by e-mail at [email protected]; her office phone number is 401-331-8575 ex.
53. Joanne Melish’s email is [email protected], and her office phone number is 860-486-6807. For
questions about accommodations, costs, etc., after January 1, please email Mary O’Connor at
[email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
Morgan Grefe and Joanne Melish
http://www.neh.gov/projects/si-school.html