Venture Smith and the business of slavery and freedom
The family, determined to honor the bicentennial of their founding ancestor's death by discovering everything possible about his life, opened burial plots in the hope of recovering DNA for genealogical tracing. What began as a scientific inquiry into African origins rapidly evolved into an interdisciplinary collaboration between historians, literary analysts, geographers, genealogists, anthropologists, political philosophers, genomic biologists, and, perhaps most revealingly, a poet. Their common goal has been to reconstruct the life of an extraordinary African American and to assay its implications for the sprawling, troubled eighteenth-century world of racial exploitation over which he triumphed. From publisher description
Print Book, English, ©2010
University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, ©2010
Biography
xvii, 279 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
9781558497405, 1558497404
368048004
"How I came by my name" / Marilyn Nelson
A narrative of the life and adventures of Venture,
/ Venture Smith
pt. I. History. The African background of Venture Smith / Paul E. Lovejoy
Trust and violence in Atlantic history : the economic worlds of Venture Smith / Robert P. Forbes, David Richardson, and Chandler B. Saint
Venture Smith and the law of slavery / John Wood Sweet
"Owned by negro Venture" : land and liberty in the life of Venture Smith / Cameron Blevins
pt. II. Memory. Venture Smith, one of a kind / Vincent Carretta
Keeping his word : money, love, and privacy in the narrative of Venture Smith / Anna Mae Duane
pt. III. Legacy. The genomics perspective on Venture Smith : genetics, ancestry, and the meaning of family / Linda Strausbaugh [and others]
Venture Smith and philosophical theories of human rights / Anne L. Hiskes
Venture Smith's gravestone : its maker and his message / Kevin Tulimieri
"The freedom business" / Marilyn Nelson
Documenting Venture Smith project time line