Between 1492 and 1900, an estimated 2.5 million to 5 million Native Americans were enslaved in North, Central, and South America. Indigenous people were enslaved in every European colony, including colonial New England. How is it that we have overlooked such an important part of this history and its effects over time?

In this live panel discussion at the Boston Public Library, the fourth event in our 2023 fall lecture series, Enslavement & Resistance: New England 1620-1760, we invited you to hear the words of members of the Nipmuc, Narragansett, Wampanoag Tribes and Nations, and from Brown University. Together, Linford Fisher, historian at Brown University and head of the Stolen Relations project; Cheryll Toney Holley, Nipmuc; Alexis Moreis, Wampanoag; and Loren Spears, Narragansett, related a crucial hidden history far more true than the one most of us were taught, and the way that Native people have both survived and thrived.

The Stolen Relations project at Brown University is a tribal collaborative project that seeks to understand the historic enslavement of Native Americans as part of a longer colonial process. In consultation with regional tribal representatives, the project is building a database of thousands of enslaved Natives in order to increase public awareness and make this information available to descendent communities. Its purpose, as its website says, is to recover stories of Indigenous enslavement in the Americas - stories long neglected and even forgotten.

Linford Fisher is project PI and associate professor of history at Brown University; Cheryll Toney Holley, Nipmuc, is chief of the Hassanamisco Nipmuc; Alexis Moreis, Wampanoag, is a conservationist, and tribal historic preservation officer of the Wampanoag Tribe of Chappaquidick; and Lorén Spears, Narragansett, is director of the Tomaquag Museum.

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We are grateful to Mass Humanities for its support of our lecture series Enslavement & Resistance: New England 1620-1760.

The opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the presenters and not necessarily those of the Partnership of Historic Bostons.

Image: Alexis Moreis, Wampanoag, conservationist, and tribal historic preservation officer of the Wampanoag Tribe of Chappaquiddick. She is one of three Indigenous panelist speaking at this event. Credit: Malaika Suarez