Exhibit Background

Staff & Consultants of the Henrietta Marie Exhibit

The following scholars were instrumental in the research and planning of the Henrietta Marie exhibition, catalog, and publications.  They first met as a group in Key West in 1993, and have been closely associated with the project ever since, giving unsparingly of their time and knowledge. 

Russel Adams Ph.D. holds the Chair of the Afro-American Studies Department at Howard University.  Dr. Adams has recently emerged as Howard’s spokesperson against racism of all kinds. His insights into the Middle Passage section as well as the general tenor of the exhibition have been essential.

Linda Heywood Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of History at Howard University.  She has specialized in the fate of the African Diaspora in both North and South America, tracing the roots of various African peoples in the New World.  She has contributed one of the catalog essays and much of the research for the Americas section of the exhibition.

Jane Landers Ph.D.  is an assistant Professor in the History Department of Vanderbilt University.  Her scholarly contributions on the fate of African, Spanish and Native Americans in Florida and the Caribbean Basin have brought her national renown.  For the Henrietta Marie  project she contributed much of the background research for the Americas section of the exhibition.

Colin Palmer Ph.D. is a professor of History at the City University of New York.  Palmer is a scholar of the slave trade and the American Civil War.  Among his numerous publications is Human Cargoes, which tells the story of the voyage from Africa to the Americas.  He contributed important information to the Middle Passage section of the exhibition and to the overall planning process.

James Rawley Ph.D. is Carl Adolph Happold Professor Emeritus in the department of history at the University of Nebraska.  He has made a lifetime study of the slave trade in general and the role of the English in that trade in particular.  Among his publications is The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History.  His research was seminal to the development of the London section of the exhibition.

John Thornton Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of History at Millersville University.  He has specialized in the history of Africa during the early modern period, and among his publications is Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400 - 1680.  He has contributed extensively to the Africa section of the exhibition.

Others who helped in specific areas include:

Tonia Barringer, exhibition organizer.

Madeleine Burnside, Ph.D., executive director of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, co-organizer of the exhibit.

Angus Konstam M.Phil., who was the curator of Weapons at the Tower of London, who researched the arms and ordnance of the Henrietta Marie. Konstam served as Chief Curator of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum from 1995-1999.

Corey Malcom, director of archaeology of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society

David D. Moore M.A., who was the principal archaeologist on the site of the Henrietta Marie during its excavation in the 1980s and a project consultant in the 1990s.  Moore is currently the nautical archaeologist of the North Carolina Maritime Museum.

Cheryl LaRoche Ph.D., of the Manhattan Graves Project, who is currently investigating the trade beads from the Henrietta Marie.

Nigel Tattersfield, whose extensive research into the origin of the Henrietta Marie and her cargo in archives in England supplied much of the background for this exhibition.

Cornel West, Ph.D. whose insight into the ethical context of slavery then and now supplies the exhibition’s closing thoughts.

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