“It was amazing,” she said. “Who were these people and what happened to them?”
For Wolff-Platt, new information meant revisiting her past and the forces that have subtly shaped her life.
discover
Wolff-Platt first learned of his connection to enslaved people from James Shea, a former curator of Longfellow House, a Cambridge National Historic Site, while doing research for ancestry.com around 2016. I was. But it was Carissa Chen. , a Harvard student who emphasized Harvard connections.
In the winter of 2020, Chen took a course on slavery and Harvard University taught by renowned historian Sven Beckert. She was curious if she could find the descendants of those who were enslaved at Harvard University, and began searching for her while she was quarantined at her home in Tustin, Calif., during the pandemic.
After failing with missing records and people who died childless, she was able to find at least 40 living descendants of Darby’s parents, Tony, and a couple named Basal of Cuba. The results became part of her graduation thesis.
Tony, the driver, and Cuba, the maid, were enslaved by Henry Vassal and Penelope Royale Vassal, who made their fortunes from the sugar cane plantations of Jamaica and Antigua. Their son, Darby, was born in what is now Longfellow House in 1769. The house is named after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the most famous resident of “Paul Revere’s Ride”. Chen said he was sold or given away while in the womb.