Panel 9: Reclamation through Data-Informed Methods for Studying Slavery and Beyond

14th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium
Panel 9: Reclamation through Data-Informed Methods for Studying Slavery and Beyond
Moderator: Kristina Poznan
Panelists: Jazma Sutton, Grace Murry, Camilia Bell, Victorianna Mejia, Jadyn Evans
Researchers from four projects will discuss studying the lives of enslaved individuals using data-informed methods, reflecting on the hardships and value of that work. Sutton will discuss the archival challenges of recovering the experiences of Black women in antebellum Indiana and the method of Descendant Archival Practices-an approach to identify, digitize, and share cultural heritage material valued by descendant communities to give them the tools to create and explore their own histories. Murry discusses a student team’s work on the sale of 32 enslaved individuals hired out in Maryland circa 1837. She speaks to the relationship between that history and the systemic consequences of enslavement and struggle for restorative justice in the present day. Camilia Bell shares a 2023 student cohort’s work study of the enslaved community at Tudor Place, striving to center the lives of Afro-descended peoples and with the hope of aiding descendants, organizers, and other willing communities through the example of their work. Living in post-African enslavement global societies, she explains, the future of Black healing and reclamation requires radical community healing practices, intersectional foundations, and uncovering truths once buried. Finally, Victorianna Mejia and Jadyn Evans explore an economy, forcefully hidden, whereby Black lives were commodified. They wrestle with their dismay that their townscape honors the names of enslavers while ignoring the people who built it. This research contributes to historical justice by focusing on underutilized documents in the Bexar County Archives, intentional language and analysis, and exposing the faulty narrative of the county’s history.