‘Boston: Origin of American Slavery’ Presentation at Royall House Wednesday

“Boston: Origin of American Slavery,” an “illustrated talk,” will be delivered by local journalists Lisa Braxton and Alex Reid at the Royall House at 7:30PM on Wednesday.

Captain William Pierce piloted his ship Desire toward Boston into the inner harbor as onlookers watched from the frozen shoreline. It was February 1638. Like the Mayflower voyage many years earlier, the Desire carried passengers who would begin new lives in the New World. But these people were not Puritans or their countrymen. They were people of a different sort. They were African-born slaves.

Built in a Marblehead shipyard, the Desire was the first American-built slave ship in our national history. Up to this moment, slavery had been a European enterprise. But the Desire’s arrival in Boston Harbor that cold day was a historic moment, for it presaged Boston’s age of slavery and the laws and social customs that encouraged the buying and selling of human beings until well after the Revolutionary War.

The event is free for Royall House members and $5 for non-members. The Royall House is located at 15 George Street.

– Information from the Royall House