Image: A bill of sale for a slave named Peet, dated October 17, 1785, to Samuel Smith of Walkill, NY. From Wikimedia Commons.
Today and tomorrow, historians, scholars, teachers, and activists are converging on Lake Placid, NY for a two-day conference on modern-day slavery. The Plattsburgh Press-Republican had a story yesterday, in which they interviewed speaker Ron Soodalter, coauthor of Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial of an American Slave Trader.
If you think slavery is history in America -- or even New York State -- think again, Soodalter said:
"I think Americans are well aware of their slave past," Soodalter said. "I think, however, there is stunning lack of awareness regarding modern-day slavery in America. Americans don't want to hear slavery exists in the home of the free, home of the brave. It has never gone away. It has been here since Christopher Columbus set sail here. There has never been a day on this continent that there has not been slavery."...
...New York state's slavery includes slavery of an agricultural and sexual nature.
"The New York State Legislature, in my humble opinion, is an ongoing disaster," he said. "It took them two years to create an anti-human-trafficking law. It's uneven in the extreme. Sexual trafficking is a B felony. Labor is a D felony. No one form of slavery is more egregious than the other. Taking control of that person's life, by right, is egregious enough to call for the most severe type of punishment. To assign a value over it is not only wrongheaded but cruel. It ultimately results in the deprivation of services for the survivors of modern-day slavery."
North Country Public Radio had a segment this morning about the conference, featuring Martha Swan of John Brown Lives. A snippet:
Renan Salgado from Rochester, he works with farmworkers, Farmworker Legal Services in New York. There have been prosecuted cases of slavery of farmworkers in New York State in the 21st century.
For more about the conference, check out the schedule on John Brown Coming Home.
