Bank Square Books presents an author talk and signing with Bruce Stark for the book The Myth and Reality of Slavery in Eastern Connecticut: The Brownes of Salem and Absentee Land Ownership
About the Book
The Myth and Reality of Slavery in Eastern Connecticut: The Brownes of Salem and Absentee Land Ownership tells the story of absentee landlords and slavery in the region prior to the American Revolution. It also provides detailed research on the importance of tenant farming among free Blacks and whites, which has been largely overlooked by historians. Using an impressive array of primary sources, Stark reinterprets American history based not on hearsay or secondary sources, but on irrefutable, documented facts. This is a masterwork of historical research.
About the Author
Bruce Stark is a Connecticut native who has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Connecticut and a library degree from Southern Connecticut State University. In a forty year career as an archivist and historian, he has written and published some ____ books and articles, mostly on Connecticut subjects. He spent twelve years as Assistant State Archivist at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford, the repository that holds the bulk of materials used in his extensive research.
His latest work, The Myth and Reality of Slavery in Eastern Connecticut is the product of more than a decade of research inspired by a false story that a slave plantation existed in Salem, yet his inquiry that goes far beyond an analysis of this narrative. He will be talking today about the genesis and debunking of the tale of the slave plantation and some other subjects written about in placing to the original story in a larger historical context. The title of his presentation is: “Peeling the Research Onion, or, How a Newspaper Article Led to a 300-Page Book.”
(This book cannot be returned)
The Myth and Reality of Slavery in Eastern Connecticut: The Brownes of Salem and Absentee Land Ownership tells the story of absentee landlords and slavery in the region prior to the American Revolution. It also provides detailed research on the importance of tenant farming among free Blacks and whites, which has been largely overlooked by historians.