Photographs of enslaved people taken by coercion are proceeds of robbery.

Evidence

Most compelling was her argument for restitution: “People committed serious crimes in the course of taking these photographs…. If Agassiz and his cohorts wrestled enslaved people’s property from them through violence or the threat of violence, then the daguerreotypes are the proceeds of robbery…. And, if the images cannot be separated from the pictures, as indeed they can’t, then the daguerreotypes themselves are the fruits of taking through fear of force. Consequently, a commitment to nonviolence—or even common sense—militates that Harvard should not now own these objects.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 663

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines the moral-legal argument that coerced daguerreotypes are fruits of robbery and therefore should not be owned by Harvard.
• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the reparations logic in ‘On Sacrifice’ and the property-as-afterlife-of-slavery theme in the reader’s purpose.

Related

• Slave-made daguerreotypes are the proceeds of robbery and belong to descendants (similarity 0.94)
• Harvard’s sole defense was that photographers always own their photographs. (similarity 0.82)
• Harvard framed Lanier’s case as resting on enslaved persons owning their own images (similarity 0.81)
• The core legal dispute is whether an enslaved person’s image counts as cultural property (similarity 0.81)
• The daguerreotypes were among the first photos ever taken of enslaved people (similarity 0.81)
• Denying descendants’ claims to the images perpetuates the systematic subversion of Black property rights (similarity 0.80)
• Harvard sanitized the history of the Zealy daguerreotypes and profited from them (similarity 0.80)
• Harvard paid to license descended-artist images it considers its own property (similarity 0.80)
• Institutional possession of enslaved people’s images flows from slavery’s property logic. (similarity 0.80)
• Harvard spent decades exploiting and sanitizing the daguerreotypes’ history after 1976 (similarity 0.79)
• Harvard asserted ownership of the daguerreotypes without ever stating its basis. (similarity 0.79)
• Harvard justified keeping the images through its educational mission (similarity 0.79)
• Enslavers’ photographed subjects’ descendants hold rightful claim to the images (similarity 0.79)
• Enslaved subjects could not consent to being photographed, rendering the images non-consensual (similarity 0.79)
• Lanier sued Harvard for wrongful seizure and expropriation of her enslaved ancestors’ cultural property (similarity 0.78)