Lessons to Learn

We are excited to learn that Tiya Miles' article Native Americans and the Underground Railroad, featured on the National Park Service website, is being used in the Freedom Seekers curriculum, a collaborative project between several organizations and schools throughout the Great Lakes.

From the project announcement: The lessons featured in this free curriculum, Freedom Seekers: The Underground Railroad, Great Lakes, and Science Literacy Activities, acknowledge the enslaved Africans who had to rely on environmental science principles in their quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Read the full announcement on the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant website to learn more about the Freedom Seekers curriculum, the Center for Great Lakes Literacy (CGLL), and the project collaborators.

We appreciate your feedback!

We were gratified to learn that American Studies scholar Zoya Brumberg featured our project on the University of Texas at Austin "Thinking in Public" public history website. See her post here.

I just have to say that I LOVE the work that you've done on slavery in Detroit. I am a teacher, and most of my third grade students are from Detroit. I have three different social studies groups (about 90 kids). They love the interactive map that you and your teammates made, and the stories that you have helped to uncover.

Your work has helped me to teach Michigan history more accurately, and to present stories that hold my students' attention.

Thank you and keep up the good work.

— Caitlin Gedris, teacher

Tour Detroit's History

We are delighted to share that Jamon Jordan, President of the Detroit chapter of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and founder of Black Scrolls Network History, offers tours about slavery in Detroit. We are grateful to Mr. Jordan for using our site as a resource.

We appreciate Jamon's work. Read more about Jamon and his tours here.

For more information on his slavery tour or his other tours on black history, visit Black Scroll Network History & Tours on Facebook.

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Introduction to the Detroit Census Data written by Michelle Cassidy

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Number of Slaves among Detroit Population: These numbers are taken from censuses from 1773, 1779, and 1782 during English possession of Detroit. Philip Dejean, a Justice of the Peace, recorded the census numbers for Detroit in 1773. He included people at Fort Detroit, north and south of the fort, and on Hog Island. He noted that troops stationed at the fort were not counted and that there were actually more male servants than recorded as many of them were out hunting or visiting American Indian villages. The 1779 survey was conducted by Justice of the Peace Mr. Thomas Williams, Captain McGregor, and Mr. Sampson Fleming at the request of the Commanding Captain Richard B. Lernoult. The survey was recorded during the American Revolution and these numbers included the garrison and 500 prisoners. Major DePeyster ordered the 1782 "Survey of the Settlement of Detroit" and prisoners and military families were not included in these recorded numbers.

Source: Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection, 2d ed. (Lansing: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Company, State Printers, 1908), 9: 649; Ibid., 10: 311-326, 601-613. Also, see Brian Leigh Dunnigan. Frontier Metropolis: Picturing Early Detroit, 1701-1838 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 71-72.

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1810 "District of Detroit": During this time, Detroit was part of the Territory of Michigan and these numbers reflect the District of Detroit, which consisted of a ten-mile long strip along the Detroit River. Households in Detroit with last names starting with an "A" and some starting with a "B" are missing from these numbers (and the original manuscript in the B.F.H. Witherell papers at the Detroit Public Library). The numbers in this bar graph only include places in the District of Detroit where slaves lived. There were 2, 355 inhabitants counted for the entire District of Detroit.

Source: Donna Valley Russell, ed. Michigan Censuses, 1710-1830: Under the French, British, and Americans (Detroit: Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, Inc., 1982), 88-91.