Wendy Warren will speak about New England’s involvement in the slave trade at 6 p.m. May 11 at The Gables, 115 Derby St., Salem.
The era of colonizing New England, Warren told Terry Gross on “Fresh Air,” “was a time of warfare and brutality, and a lot of fear and trauma.” Most people don’t realize the degree to which New England participated in chattel bondage. Colonists sold Native Americans to overseers of the sugar plantations in the West Indies while they imported Africans from the West Indies.
Warren has a doctorate in history from Yale and is a professor of history at Princeton. Her recent book, “New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America,” reveals that selling Africans and Native Americans in 17th-century New England was considered acceptable even by religious standards.
“Slavery was embedded in the process of colonization, and, in some cases, it drove the process of colonization,” she said. Her book, based on study of primary source documents such as wills, letters, ledgers and journals, illuminates the symbiosis between slavery and colonization in the Atlantic World.
“New England Bound” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in history in 2017. Warren’s presentation is part of the Seven Lectures at Seven Gables series and complements The Gables’ current exhibition, “Life and Labor Over Four Centuries at The House of the Seven Gables.” The exhibition will be open before and after the lecture for those interested.
The cost is $7. A book signing for “New England Bound” follows the lecture in the museum store. To RSVP: http://www.7Gables.org; email groups@7Gables.org; or call 978-744-0991, ext. 152.