Keynote: William C. Davis
Historians have discovered large amounts of information regarding the legal slave trade and New Orleans as the most important slave trading market in the United States during the Antebellum period. However, the illicit slave trade supported by privateers, pirates and businessmen is less understood.
Despite the banning of importing slaves by the federal government in 1808, a huge market for slaves existed in Louisiana and these networks provided access to cheaper slaves and without documentation. Privateer Jean Lafitte and Jim Bowie are just two of the most well-known names associated with this trade network.
This symposium will explore this illicit slaved trade and some of the important figures of this period in American History. The importance of Louisiana and the Gulf South to the Atlantic Slave Trade will also be explored as well.
Tickets: $80 Members/$90 General Admission
Schedule of Events
Friday, December 9
6:30 p.m. Keynote Speaker: William C. Davis
Author: The Pirates Lafite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf
7:15 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., Opening Reception
Saturday, December 10
9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Registration
9:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m., Dr. Charles Chamberlain – Symposium Introduction
9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m., Dr. Kevin Harrell (Historic New Orleans Collection)
The Shadowy Voyage: The Story of the Clotilda, America’s Last Slave Ship
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Dr. Robert Paquette (Alexander Hamilton Institute)
“That Inhuman Traffic”: Jefferson, Louisiana, and the Ending of the Slave Trade to and Slavery in the United States
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., Erin Greenwald (Historic New Orleans Collection)
Caught between Empires: The Legal Status of “Créoles de St. Domingue” Claimed as Property in Louisiana, 1794-1810
2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., Dr. Randy Sparks (Tulane University)
The Tragic Voyages of the Brig Uncas: New Orleans and the Illegal Slave Trade
3:45 p.m. – 4:45 p.m., Dr. David Head (University of Central Florida)
Slave Smuggling Privateers in the Spanish Borderlands: Geopolitics and the Illegal Slave Trade