Opala is known for his research on the "Gullah Connection," the long historical thread linking the people of Sierra Leone to the Gullah people -- African Americans who live in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Opala said he had witnessed two previous "Gullah homecomings" to Sierra Leone, but Polite's was different. "The earlier homecomings were also big national events," he said, "and Sierra Leoneans were deeply moved to meet African Americans whose ancestors were taken away from their country centuries ago. But this time, they knew the name of a specific ancestor, and so they talked directly to Priscilla herself, looking at Thomalind, but speaking to the spirit of the child they believed she brought with her." Anthropologist Jospeh Opala served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone.
Priscilla's Children: Jospeh Opala's Slavery Research Exhibited at New York City Museum
Priscilla's Children: James Madison University Professor's Slavery Research Exhibited at New York City Museum
HARRISONBURG, Va., Nov. 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- The extraordinary 249-year document trail linking a 10-year-old African girl kidnapped into slavery in 1756 to her modern-day descendant opened Nov. 8 at the New-York Historical Society, New York City's first museum, in an exhibit curated by James Madison University historian Joseph Opala.
Scholars, including Opala, have used this document trail to identify one of the slave Priscilla's modern descendants -- an African American woman living in South Carolina who, with Opala, this year made an extraordinary journey back to Sierra Leone, where her ancestor seven generations back was kidnapped. Very few African Americans can trace their family history for 250 years, and even fewer can identify a specific ancestor from Africa.
"Finding Priscilla's Children: The Roots and Branches of Slavery" will be on view through March 5, 2006, at the NYC museum located at Central Park West and 77th Street.
"The collections of the New-York Historical Society hold the records of the very slave ship that took Priscilla and were key in helping to trace this family's history," said N-YHS President Louise Mirrer. "This exhibition tells a story that stands for the many lost family histories we will never know."
Opala found the records of the slave ship, "Hare," at the New-York Historical Society that, along with other research, linked Priscilla directly to Sierra Leone.
In May 2005, the JMU adjunct history professor who lived in Sierra Leone for 17 years, accompanied Mrs. Thomalind Martin Polite of Charleston, Priscilla's seventh generation descendant, for a weeklong visit to Sierra Leone at the invitation of that country's government.
Sierra Leoneans believed Polite, who was received by Sierra Leone's president and other top national leaders, was bringing Priscilla's spirit back with her, so they called her visit "Priscilla's Homecoming."
Opala is known for his research on the "Gullah Connection," the long historical thread linking the people of Sierra Leone to the Gullah people -- African Americans who live in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Opala said he had witnessed two previous "Gullah homecomings" to Sierra Leone, but Polite's was different. "The earlier homecomings were also big national events," he said, "and Sierra Leoneans were deeply moved to meet African Americans whose ancestors were taken away from their country centuries ago. But this time, they knew the name of a specific ancestor, and so they talked directly to Priscilla herself, looking at Thomalind, but speaking to the spirit of the child they believed she brought with her."
"I doubt that any reunion quite this specific will ever take place again for an African American whose ancestors were taken away during the slave trade."
Polite's ancestor, Priscilla, was purchased by Caleb Godfrey, captain of the "Hare," which was owned by Samuel and William Vernon, wealthy merchants of Newport, R.I. The slave ship's voyage to South Carolina is one of the best documented in the history of the Atlantic slave trade with the N-YHS' collections holding the most complete record of the ship.
When the "Hare" landed in South Carolina, Henry Laurens, a rich planter and slave dealer in Charleston, handled the sale of slaves. According to Laurens' records of the sale (also in the N-YHS collections), Elias Ball, a wealthy rice planter, purchased Priscilla and three other children from the "Hare." Priscilla lived on Ball family plantations for the rest of her life, bearing 10 children in slavery and dying in 1811 at about 65 years of age.
Edward Ball, author of "Slaves in the Family" and a direct descendent of Elias, mined his ancestors' unusually detailed plantation records in the 1990s while researching his book and found enough information to link Priscilla to her modern descendants in South Carolina.
The New York exhibit uses period maps and drawings and historical documents to follow the 1755-56 voyage of the "Hare" from Rhode Island to Sierra Leone to South Carolina. The story of Priscilla is illustrated with original documents in the society collections and with historical documents borrowed from other archives in Rhode Island and South Carolina.
A short video that brings Priscilla's story full circle was prepared by Opala and Gary Chatelain, an architectural historian at JMU. The computer-assisted design image recreates what an African child imprisoned at Bunce Island, the British slave castle, would see as she was led through the door to the children's prison and down a long ramp to the waiting slave ship. The video also contains scenes of Polite's recent homecoming to Sierra Leone.
Opala has served as an adviser on cultural policy to the government of Sierra Leone and adviser on African American history to the U.S. National Park Service. He has been scholar-in-residence at Penn Center in South Carolina and a research fellow at Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.
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For more information, contact Laura Washington, New-York Historical Society, at 212-485-9263. Contact Joseph Opala at 540-568-8120 or by e-mail at opalajx@jmu.edu.
