Harvey Amani Whitfield: “The Meaning of Slavery in Vermont”

Vermonters have always been proud that their state was the first to outlaw slavery in its constitution - but is that what really happened? The author of The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont 1777-1810 considers the deepest questions about what freedom actually meant for African Americans in Vermont well into the nineteenth century.

About the author: Harvey Amani Whitfield is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Vermont. His areas of research are the black populations of the Maritime colonies and Vermont. He is the author of Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815-1860 (University Press of New England, 2006). He has also published numerous articles and book reviews, including “The Struggle Over Slavery in the Maritime Colonies,”Acadiensis: Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region, 41 (Autumn 2012).