Department colloquium by Brock Bahler.

While many students are habituated to think of slavery as a “Southern” institution and are taught that Pennsylvania “abolished” slavery in 1780, the reality is that in Western Pennsylvania over 2700 unique heads of households were enslavers between 1780-1850. These enslavers were often the most powerful people in society: generals, politicians, judges, sheriffs, landowners, and business owners. They were also ministers, elders, and trustees of prominent institutions. This expansive and ongoing research project connects these enslavers with the religious institutions that materially benefited from their stolen wealth (churches and universities) and maps how they continue to be memorialized in Pittsburgh’s built environment (e.g, street names, monuments, neighborhoods, etc.). It will further reflect on how an epistemology of ignorance, or intentional forgetting, of those who were enslaved functions within our cultural and institutional memory. For the purposes of this colloquium, special focus will be placed on enslavers who had ties to the University of Pittsburgh.