Transatlantic Slavery Symposium: Constitutions and Slavery

Dr. Kevin Butterfield, executive director of The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, will moderate a discussion about constitutions and slavery in a transatlantic setting. Featuring Dr. David Waldstreicher, Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York; Dr. Robert J. Cottrol, Harold Paul Green Research Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School; and Dr. Padraic X. Scanlan, Assistant Professor at the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, the panel will explore the relationship between constitutions – written and unwritten, national and provincial – and slavery in the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. The Transatlantic Slavery Symposium is a joint venture between Benjamin Franklin House in London, the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Our aim is to bring together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic to address the lasting impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade through panel discussions on themes ranging from its historical foundations and development in the Revolutionary Atlantic world to current best practices in the museums and heritage sector. We hope that by addressing this complex topic from a historical and contemporary perspective, we can spark further discussions on how to bring stories of enslaved people to the forefront of public history internationally.