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I've walked down a ramp leading to the turquoise water of the ocean in Mozambique. Enslaved people descended the steep path in chains to board ships, taking them away from all they loved. The ramp is far larger than you may picture; the slave trade was a high-volume business.
The vastness and international nature of the trade are barriers to understanding it on a human level, to finding connection and healing.
I've better understood slavery's link to my life by following the story of one slave ship, a journey that recently came full circle for me.
I've better understood slavery's link to my life by following the story of one slave ship, a journey that recently came full circle for me.
From this ramp, 512 enslaved people were forced onto a Portuguese slaver, the São José Paquete D’Africa, destined to be sold in Brazil. In December 1794, storms destroyed the ship off the Cape of Good Hope. Many perished. Survivors were sold in Cape Town.
I was weeping in the research room of the National Archives. I'd taken a pause from exhibition research to see if I could learn more about the earliest of my Bunch ancestors whose name I know: Candis Bunch.
#SmithsonianBHM #BHM
#SmithsonianBHM #BHM
Candis was an enslaved woman whose name I'd previously discovered attached to the marriage license for her son, my great grandfather Oscar Bunch. In a breakthrough at the Archives, I found mention of her death in 1870 as a 40-year-old freed woman in Wake County, North Carolina.
After that discovery, I nearly gave up. In the records of the Freedmen's Bureau, I unearthed a labor contract between her and a landowner. She'd received $11 for 44 days of farm work in 1867 and purchased items such as starch and seed cotton from the landowner.
