Lessons to Learn

We are excited to learn that Tiya Miles' article Native Americans and the Underground Railroad, featured on the National Park Service website, is being used in the Freedom Seekers curriculum, a collaborative project between several organizations and schools throughout the Great Lakes.

From the project announcement: The lessons featured in this free curriculum, Freedom Seekers: The Underground Railroad, Great Lakes, and Science Literacy Activities, acknowledge the enslaved Africans who had to rely on environmental science principles in their quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Read the full announcement on the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant website to learn more about the Freedom Seekers curriculum, the Center for Great Lakes Literacy (CGLL), and the project collaborators.

We appreciate your feedback!

We were gratified to learn that American Studies scholar Zoya Brumberg featured our project on the University of Texas at Austin "Thinking in Public" public history website. See her post here.

I just have to say that I LOVE the work that you've done on slavery in Detroit. I am a teacher, and most of my third grade students are from Detroit. I have three different social studies groups (about 90 kids). They love the interactive map that you and your teammates made, and the stories that you have helped to uncover.

Your work has helped me to teach Michigan history more accurately, and to present stories that hold my students' attention.

Thank you and keep up the good work.

— Caitlin Gedris, teacher

Tour Detroit's History

We are delighted to share that Jamon Jordan, President of the Detroit chapter of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and founder of Black Scrolls Network History, offers tours about slavery in Detroit. We are grateful to Mr. Jordan for using our site as a resource.

We appreciate Jamon's work. Read more about Jamon and his tours here.

For more information on his slavery tour or his other tours on black history, visit Black Scroll Network History & Tours on Facebook.

mapping slavery in detroit

Elizabeth (Lisette) Denison Forth was enslaved in Detroit and later became a successful businesswoman. Image from: Mark F. McPherson. Looking for Lisette: in quest of an American original (Dexter: Mage Press, 2001).

Detroit is a fascinating American city with a rich and sometimes troubled history. Mapping Slavery in Detroit is a University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) project to develop and explore the history of slavery in Detroit and its effect on the modern-day city.

The existence of slavery in the city of Detroit and its surrounding areas is a topic that has yet to be thoroughly researched and explained. In fact, current public portrayals of Detroit’s history still emphasize the role of the Underground Railroad. The primary goal of this project is to provide a more complete picture of slavery in the Detroit area for the general public, students, and scholars in order to acknowledge the full history of the area and to learn from it. Continue reading ›

Learn more about the project; check out the interactive map we created; view graphs detailing the slave population in the area, and travel with us on a field trip to Detroit.

Watch the video of Mapping Slavery in Detroit. The video showcases the two years of work Professor Tiya Miles and a team of students spent researching the history of slavery in pre-Civil War Detroit, mapping the lives of slaves and former slaves and reclaiming an essential part of the city's history.

Read a write-up of Mapping Slavery in Detroit written by Brian Short featured in the Fall 2014 issue of LSA Magazine.

Top image: Woodward Avenue, Detroit, c. 1865-1868. Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Digging Detroit, diggingdetroit.com, episode 16: Slavery in Detroit.

Digging Detroit is a community-based digital storytelling project focused on revealing the history of Detroit.