Harvard’s scholarship misidentified an enslaved woman, erasing her documented existence.

Evidence

But if we consider the profound insight as offered by Toni Carrier, that “Drana,” like many of my other enslaved ancestors, has been misidentified, and that her true name is “Diana,” then she doesn’t die or disappear, as Harvard surmises above. In fact, “Diana” is in both the Colonel Thomas Taylor and Benjamin Franklin Taylor slave indexes, grouped with Jack and/or in proximity with Papa Renty’s children. This was yet another example of the hubris of Harvard and the notion that only they can speculate about the daguerreotypes—only they can tell my enslaved ancestor’s story. They were wrong. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 795

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth verifying the documentary record independently — whether ‘Diana’ genuinely appears in the Taylor slave indexes as claimed and how the Peabody researchers missed or chose to ignore this lineage evidence.