Thirteen years ago, Tamara Lanier underwent a quest to understand her lineage, resulting in a lawsuit to reclaim photos from a Harvard museum that she believes depict her enslaved ancestors. ProPublica unfolds the moving story that begins with an African-born, enslaved man named Renty. Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, who subscribed to polygenesis—the racist belief that different races do not share a common origin—traveled to South Carolina in 1850 to capture images of Renty and six other enslaved people to document his beliefs. Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology still has the 15 daguerreotypes, which are among the oldest of enslaved people in the US. "I knew in my heart that this was the man I'd heard about for so many years," Lanier recalled after seeing the depiction of Renty.
In 2010, her mother's dying wish was for Lanier to write down her family's history. Lanier's research led her to Harvard, who she said rules over the images "with an iron fist." Pre-Civil War genealogical records of African-Americans are scant, but crucial information stored with the photos offered important clues—and Lanier believes her research serves as proof that two of the daguerreotypes capture her descendants. But with no laws on the books that allow African-American descendants to repatriate their ancestors' remains or belongings, she lost a lawsuit seeking to recover the photos with the university, which is not convinced the proof is definitive. The piece details the thorny history and hopeful future of the daguerreotypes. Read it in full here. (Or check out other longforms.)
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