Tubman: “Raised like a neglected weed”⁶
The Tobacco Stick Plantation community significantly impacted Tubman, as she reunited with her father Ben Ross here and married an enslaved man named John Tubman around 1844, which is when she took the name Harriet.7 At this point, Tubman hired herself and her team of oxen out to plow fields and haul timber for the […]
Concord, Massachusetts holds a special place in natural history. It is home to the famous Walden Pond which provided much inspiration to the writings of Henry David Thoreau and the development of his Transcendental Conservation Ethic. However, the woods surrounding Walden Pond were home to many generations of formerly enslaved people, and their stories of […]
Starting at the end of the American Revolution and before Thoreau began his experiment living deliberately off the land, Walden Woods was home to a population of free Black residents. Town officials designated Walden Woods as a place in Concord where formerly enslaved people could reside. The land surrounding the Pond was dry and dusty, […]
Thomas Dugan was a self-emancipated African American from Virginia and the third formerly enslaved person to own land in Concord. After his first wife died, Thomas married Jennie Parker. Thoreau often writes in his journals about stopping by the Dugan’s cabin on his walks for advice or just to have a friendly conversation about farming, […]
The Robbins House was a small 540 square foot house, built in the early 1820s, and located on a small farm overlooking the Concord River. The first families that lived in the house were descendants of the Revolutionary War Patriot, Caesar Robbins. In 1823, Caesar’s son Peter Robbins purchased the house and over 13 acres […]
Throughout the history of the United States, the contributions of people of African descent have been suppressed to further a false narrative. The fields of conservation and natural history are no exception. Likewise it is easy to relegate historical figures (of any background or artificial category of people) into neatly-defined boxes. African African naturalists—in this […]
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