Tracing Peg: Slavery in Oyster Bay, the current exhibition at the Oyster Bay Historical Society, opens Sunday, October 11, 2009. Using previously unpublished documents from the archival collections of the Society, Raynham Hall and the Town of Oyster Bay, the exhibition traces the life of Peg, a young woman who was a slave in Oyster Bay.

The basis of the exhibition is a 1722 receipt of sale (shown below), discovered in the Society's archives, that records the sale by Thomas Kirby to Nathan Coles and David Vallantine on January 10 of two female slaves, twenty-two year old Peg and two-year old Bess. In a community where such transactions were generally private, the receipt is a rarity. Most purchases, manumissions, and other slave documents were never copied into the Town Records, and most have been lost or destroyed.

The exhibition provides an overview of slavery's evolution on Long Island, analyzing Long Islanders' involvement with the slave trade, manumission, and emancipation. Town Historian John Hammond contributed to the exhibit, having found an abandonment document in Town records that show a slave child abandoned to the Overseer of the Poor on the same day it was legally registered by the owner as property. The conjecture is that the owner -- perpetrating an early "welfare fraud" -- then took in the child, qualifying for a $3.50 monthly allotment under the Emancipation Act.

Curated by Danielle Apfelbaum, who uncovered the receipt of sale, the exhibition is timed to coincide with New York State Archives month, and includes a special Archives Month reception at the Society's Earle-Wightman House Museum on Saturday, October 24, 2009 from 3:00-5:00 pm.

Home > Exhibits > Current Exhibit