Archival erasure of enslaved people limits but need not end genealogical recovery

Evidence

“So what do we know about that story? The historical record tells us that he was a member of the Congo tribe. The historical record tells us that he spent his days laboring. The historical record tells us that he was a father. His daughter Delia also worked on the EdgeHill Plantation. Renty was surely much more than either Agassiz’s list of characteristics, or the bare facts revealed in the conventional written historical record. Much of his story remains unknown or pieced together by conjecture because so much has been erased from that written record. But that does not mean that we should stop trying to know more.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 614

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Justice restoration is unachievable but identity rebuilding remains possible — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations:…, 78