Fire & Freedom: Food and Enslavement in Early America

The National Library of Medicine produced this exhibition and companion website.

The traveling exhibition explores ways in which meals can tell us how power is exchanged between and among different peoples, races, genders, and classes. In the Chesapeake region during the colonial era, European settlers relied upon indentured servants, Native Americans, and enslaved Africans for labor, life-saving knowledge of farming and food acquisition, and to gain economic prosperity. Fire and Freedom looks into life at George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation and the labor of enslaved workers to learn about the ways that meals transcend taste and sustenance.

The National Library of Medicine produced Fire and Freedom: Food and Enslavement in Early America, guest curated by historian, author, and educator Psyche Williams-Forson, PhD (University of Maryland, College Park).