Session Abstract

Chair: Seymour Drescher, Professor of History and Sociology, University of Pittsburg. Panelists: • Robert P. Forbes, Assistant Professor of American Studies and History, University of Connecticut-Torrington • David Richardson, Director of the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation and professor of Economic History, the University of Hull, UK • Chandler B. Saint, President of the Beecher House Center for the Study of Equal Rights, Torrington, Connecticut. The presenters on this panel will focus on how Venture Smith dedicated his life to liberating himself and his family from slavery in 18th-century America, how he reshaped his life after achieving freedom, and how he succeeded in a system stacked against him. Robert Forbes will deal with the question of how Venture recorded his life in a narrative. Chandler Saint will show how Venture Smith was able to turn his relationship of slave-to-master with his last owner, Col. Oliver Smith, into equal partners in commerce. David Richardson will deal with how Venture Smith defined himself as an African American. BACKGROUND: On September 19, 2005, the 200th anniversary of Venture Smith's death, an international project, Documenting Venture Smith, was launched to study his life by the Beecher House Center for the Study of Equal Rights and the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation. The project has mobilized scholars from three continents in unprecedented interdisciplinary collaborations. Archaeologists, genomic scientists, literary scholars, geographers, historians, political scientists, philosophers, and a poet have joined with Venture Smith's descendants in a collaborative effort to reconstruct all that might be learned about the life of this extraordinary individual. The work has included conferences, numerous papers, archeological excavations, DNA collection and typing, and to date has produced three books - The Freedom Business by Marilyn Nelson, Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith by Chandler B. Saint and George A. Krimsky, Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom, edited by James Brewer Stewart; a reprint of Venture Smith's 1798 Narrative; an audio version of the Narrative read by Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro and Professor Robert L. Hall, Northeastern University; a BBC documentary, A Slave's Story; and four C-SPAN programs.