NPR: Native Americans as slaves, slave owners in Michigan

Tuesday, January 31, 2012  

"Tiya Miles is the chair of the Afro-American and African Studies Department at the University of Michigan. We met with her before when she won a 2011 McArthur Fellowship, widely known as a Genius Grant, and she joins us from member station WUOM in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Professor Miles, welcome back to the program. Thanks so much for joining us and, of course, congratulations again on the McArthur. And I'd like to ask you, when you first encountered stories of African-Americans and Native American slaves in Michigan, in the Michigan territory. I think it's a surprise to many people to know or to even think about the fact that slavery existed that far north.

TIYA MILES: Well, I first encountered this when I took a class to the Ypsilanti Historical Museum, and we also took a local Underground Railroad tour. And we learned about an abolitionist here in southeast Michigan named Laura Haviland, who did work in Detroit and also in Ontario.

And she taught a school for escaped slaves in Canada, and there were blacks, as well as native people at that school. So that, for me, was the first clue that there was something between black people and native people in Detroit history regarding slavery, as well as in the Southeast.

MARTIN: Well, what have you been able to piece together about the slave experience in Michigan for both African-Americans and Native Americans? And I realize that the research is in its early stages. I know we want to stress that. But what have you been able to piece together?

MILES: Well, the first thing that strikes me about this research is that Detroit is a very unusual place. It was a major settlement for Native Americans, for French settlers, for British settlers and then later, for the Americans. So that meant that it was an area where lots of people were moving through and passing through."

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Native Americans As Slaves, Slave Owners In North (NPR 1/30)