More light has been shed on a dark side of Savannah’s past, thanks to the work of one Armstrong State University graduate student.
Primary documents recording the city’s use of slaves during the 18th and 19th centuries have been compiled and made available online as part of an internship project by Armstrong Public History graduate student Lacy Brooks.
By combing through meeting minutes, spending records and other historic documents available in Savannah’s Research Library and Municipal Archives, Brooks was able to present and identify a part of “hidden history” that has been inventoried and open for research to the public for decades, said Luciana Spracher, library and archives director.
“The records have been here and available. They just weren’t known,” Spracher said.
The project documents Savannah’s hiring and purchase of slaves to repair roads, clean streets, maintain squares and work on local fortification projects.
Brooks lists 11 men she found in the city’s collections who were purchased between 1830 and 1864. Six of their names were revealed. She said the majority of the enslaved men were purchased for the Scavengers Department, charged with clearing streets of dead animals and debris.
Spracher said the city only knew one of the slave’s names prior to Brooks’ work.
“Every name we can add and put a face to is important,” she said.
The online research tool allows users to view the historic records such as a city council resolution from June 15, 1790, summoning all male slaves between the ages of 16 and 60 years to clear the streets of weeds and “other incumbrances.”
Also posted are minutes from a meeting on Aug. 14, 1820, stating that 51 African slaves from the captured ship The Antelope were capable of performing labor the council may require, with the exception of a boy and girl among the group.
Recorded proceedings from Nov. 30, 1842, describe the sale of a man named London for $252 and change.
Brooks said she spent more than three months flipping through the pages of record books and there is more information to be found. Hopefully, she said, the city can hire another staffer for the archive who can focus solely on research projects similar to hers.
“There are only two full-time employees,” she said. “They are unable to do things like this.”
Brooks’ research can be viewed online at the savannahga.gov/slavery web link.