Nicka Smith’s talk on October 4 was recorded and is available on the college’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/RBe9uHxSTJo The Amherst Student published an article about the talk: “Nicka Smith Delivers Talk on Israel Trask and the Trask 250” Anna Smith ’22 published an op-ed piece on Trask to propose that the college acquire his mansion in…
History is complicated. Over the past two months, as I have been traveling across New England and the South, I kept hearing this phrase. Lincoln was not an anti-racist. The founding fathers were enslavers. Israel Trask was not solely bad. If you have read my previous posts in this series, you might be surprised to…
I recently saw a comment on a New England historical society’s Instagram post about Juneteenth events in the area questioning why the day would be celebrated here. The commenter seemed to believe that the history of New England is distinctly separate from the history of slavery, especially as Vermont was the first state to abolish…
Perhaps the darkest documented period in Israel Trask’s tenure as an enslaver comes in the form of the 1811 German Coast Uprising. Frequently termed the largest slave revolt in US history, the 1811 uprising spanned two days (January 8-10, 1811), three parishes (St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, and Jefferson), and involved more than 500…
This post is the first of a series on Israel Trask. Last semester, I finally nailed down my thesis topic–the memorialization of slavery and Israel Trask in the archives–which of course involved describing it to numerous people. In so doing, I was surprised at just how many people didn’t know who Israel Trask was and how he…
In March, Simon J. Levien of The Crimson authored a piece on Harvard’s historical association with the Ku Klux Klan. The piece opens with a description of a cross burned on campus in 1952, as told through Black alumnus J. Max Bond Jr. ‘s perspective. Immediately, I was reminded of the cross burned in front…
Writing the racial history of a historically white college has a certain irony, especially as an Asian-American queer woman of color. On top of that, I am a transfer student, so when I first arrived at Amherst, fresh-faced, the learning curve was steep. This blog post serves not as a historical survey, but just a…
What do an academic prize, slavery, and cereal have in common? The Kellogg family. While transcribing the Charity Fund register and records book, 1818-1840, I noticed a name with which I was vaguely familiar. William, Joseph Jr., and Martin Kellogg of Amherst donated a combined total of 250 dollars (or about $5,370 today) to the…
The first time I stepped foot on Amherst campus, I became horrendously lost. I desperately looked for a building sign, an arrow to point me in any direction, or even a human (gasp!) to ask directions from. Standing outside, in the freezing cold experiencing my first winter storm, I found none of these things. There…
As someone who is not particularly athletic, I have never had much cause to venture to Pratt Field. When was it built, and why is it named after him–and which Pratt is he? I have never completely understood why Amherst College has so many things named after Pratts–Pratt Field, Charles Pratt (gymnasium, natural history museum,…
You must be logged in to post a comment.