African American Experience in Missouri Lecture Series - Patricia Cleary

Making their Marks: Voice and Violence in Colonial St. Louis

Presented by PATRICIA CLEARY, Professor of History, California State University, Long Beach

In histories of colonial St. Louis, people of African descent appear most often as enslaved men and women forced into doing the hard labor of settlement. Traces of their existence are visible in records relating to slave auctions and census documents enumerating their presence in households, but the fabric of their daily lives can be difficult to recover. Patricia Cleary, author of "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: A History of Colonial St. Louis", will illuminate the vital roles African Americans played in the early village on the Mississippi, exploring how they experienced violence and expressed themselves in a community frequently torn by discord and unrest.

A collaboration of the State Historical Society of Missouri’s Center for Missouri Studies and the University of Missouri’s Division of Inclusion, Diversity & Equity.