Event Details

Name: Black History Month: Enslaved, Indentured, Free with Mary Antoine
Start: 2023-02-05
End: 2023-02-05
Location: Kenosha Public Library

Sunday, February 5, 2023

2:00pm

Free & open to the public

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Location

Kenosha Public Library

7979 38th Ave

Kenosha, WI 53142

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About the Event

The Wisconsin Historical Society Speakers Bureau offers an exciting opportunity for our historians, curators and authors to visit your community and share the stories of our great state.

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Enslaved, Indentured, Free shines a light on five extraordinary Black women whose lives intersected in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, during seminal years of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Mary Elise Antoine explores the history of slavery in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, relying on legal documents, military records, court transcripts, and personal correspondence. Whether through perseverance, self-purchase, or freedom suits—including one suit that was used as precedent in Dred and Harriet Scott’s freedom suits years later—each of these women ultimately secured her freedom, thanks in part to the bonds they forged with one another.

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Mary Elise Antoine is president of the Prairie du Chien Historical Society and former curator of Villa Louis. Her research focuses on the material culture and mix and confrontation of cultures on the upper Mississippi prior to Wisconsin statehood.