Sneak Peek: Interactive Documentary Reveals the Truth about Slavery in the North

As African American History Month comes to a close, we provide a sneak peek at our upcoming interactive documentary and website, People Not Property, designed and produced for Historic Hudson Valley. Launching this Spring, the project sheds light on the overlooked history of slavery in the Colonial North through personal stories of enslaved individuals. Scholars, artists, filmmakers, designers, and technical developers have collaborated for years to develop the project with several episodic-videos, engaging digital features interpreting primary documentation, and additional educational resources.

“Slavery was not just a southern institution. It was an American institution. To understand slavery in the North allows us, as a country, to heal and understand why we are where we are today,” according to the scholar, Dr. Daina Ramey Berry, featured in the project trailer.

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the website conceptualized as an interactive documentary provides a new way for students, teachers, and the general public to access, understand, and restore humanity to this hard history.