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Members of the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative met with Prime Minister Gaston A. Browne and Governor General Rodney E.L. Williams of Antigua and Barbuda on Wednesday after the initiative’s research team determined that “several hundred people” had been enslaved by Harvard affiliates in the island nation between the 1660s and 1815.
During the meeting, the prime minister and governor general pledged their “full cooperation and support” to the initiative’s efforts to identify descendants of the enslaved individuals, according to Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program Director Richard J. Cellini. HSRP is the Legacy of Slavery initiative’s effort to identify those enslaved by Harvard affiliates and their direct descendants.
The meeting was also attended by Gabriel Raeburn, HSRP’s senior research fellow; Harvard professor Vincent A. Brown, who serves on the Legacy of Slavery initiative’s memorial project committee; and University of the West Indies professor C. Justin Robinson.
According to Cellini, HSRP has discovered four Harvard-affiliated enslavers and “at least five” slave plantations in Antigua populated by people they had enslaved.
The list of “several hundred names” of enslaved individuals was “a pretty major breakthrough,” Cellini said.
“We’re on the threshold of an exciting new phase of the work of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program opening up an on-the-ground effort in Antigua,” he added.
The Crimson reported in September that the HSRP had identified more than 300 people who were enslaved by Harvard affiliates and more than 100 of their living descendants. HSRP’s recent discoveries in Antigua are separate from that previous count. As of December, the University had not begun direct outreach to descendants.
The offices of the governor general and prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda did not respond to a request for comment.
Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, has previously sought reparations from the University for its connections to slavery. In a 2019 letter to then-Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow, Browne demanded reparations for Harvard’s ties to Isaac Royall Jr., who owned a plantation in Antigua. Royall funded Harvard’s first professorship of law.
Though Harvard has not embarked on a reparations program, University spokesperson Sarah E. Kennedy O’Reilly wrote that it has ramped up its collaboration with the University of the West Indies–Five Islands Campus. Beginning in 2019, Harvard has shared some online coursework and Harvard Library holdings with UWI scholars. The partnership is not affiliated with the Legacy of Slavery initiative.
This week, HSRP visited the five identified plantations to access primary source materials. According to Cellini, four of the five sites still have original standing structures from before the 1830s, including mills where enslaved individuals ground sugar cane to create cane syrup and other sugar products.
In the next stage of their research, Cellini said, HSRP will use government and church records to identify direct descendants with the help of local government, academic institutions, and community-based scholars, researchers, and genealogists.
Cellini added that transparency was a critical part of the “equal partnership” between HSRP and the government of Antigua as they continue their work.
“This research simply cannot and should not be done in isolation by a small team sitting in Cambridge, Massachusetts,” he said. “It must be done in open, transparent, and full collaboration and partnership with people in the communities most directly involved and affected.”
—Staff writer Sophie Gao can be reached at sophie.gao@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sophiegao22.
—Staff writer Alexandra M. Kluzak can be reached at alexandra.kluzak@thecrimson.com.
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