Jane Sciacca
Slaves in the Puritan Village: The Untold History of Colonial Sudbury, Massachusetts
Sumner Chilton Powell’s 1964 Pulitzer Prize-winning history, The Puritan Village, explores the formation of Colonial Sudbury (modern Wayland and Sudbury, Massachusetts) as a model for the development of most New England towns. My study picks up where his left off when African-American enslavement in the 17th and 18th centuries became commonplace in Sudbury and throughout the region. The audience will meet some of Sudbury’s enslaved and the masters they served and I hope others will feel inspired to investigate their hidden histories.
Jane Sciacca (jane_sciacca@hotmail.com) is a retired interpretive National Park Ranger who worked at Minute Man and Boston National Historical Parks and Longfellow National Historic Site. She specialized in 18th and 19th century social history through research on the causes of the American Revolution and the Literary Renaissance. She has researched and written two guidebooks for The Wayside in Minute Man NHP (waylandmuseum.org) and a number of programs focusing on slavery and abolition. Sciacca has been a member of the Wayland Historical Society for 46 years, nine as President, and researched and presented programs on slavery, woman suffrage, and Lydia Maria Child.