Townsend Talks: New York, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and the Atlantic World

New York played an underacknowledged role in the transatlantic slave trade. Drawing on new data that documents slave ships that moved into and out of New York, this talk sheds light on how New Yorkers organized transatlantic trading, the individuals involved in financing slave ships, the places in Africa to which New York-based voyages traveled, and the African origins of enslaved people forced back to New York.

Philip Misevich is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the History Department at St. John’s University, in New York. He is the author of three books: with David Eltis, An Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 2nd Edition (forthcoming); Abolition and the Transformation of Atlantic Commerce in Southern Sierra Leone, 1790s-1860s (2019); and, with Kristin Mann, The Rise and Demise of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Atlantic World (2016). He helped create Slave Voyages, an online database that documents more than 36,000 transatlantic slave trading voyages.

Townsend Talks is a monthly lecture series in which speakers from Long Island and around the country offer fascinating insights into history, decorative arts, architecture, horticulture, and other fields that connect with our site and our mission. Lectures are $20 for museum members, $25 for nonmembers, and $10 for students (with ID) unless otherwise noted. The program begins in the Visitors’ Center, and light refreshments are included.