Join Us For A History Talk & Refreshments
In recognition of Jamaican Emancipation Day, which takes place annually on August 1, Vaughan Woods & Historic Homestead’s Rural Socrates Speaker Series offers its first annual “Exploring Hard Histories” program. We choose Jamaican Emancipation Day in remembrance of the 732 men, women and children enslaved by the Vaughans on Jamaican sugar plantations, many of whom perished before the British Parliament outlawed slavery in the West Indies on August 1, 1834.
The Rural Socrates Speaker Series features talks by authors or academics whose works speak to the literary, cultural, scientific and philosophical passions of Benjamin and Sarah Vaughan and their descendants.
In 2025 we welcome historian Seth Goldstein, South Portland Historical Society’s museum and development director, who has spent the last several years researching what was known as the West Indies Trade. This trade saw Maine providing salt cod and other food stuffs to feed enslaved Africans on West Indian plantations. Other items shipped to that region from Maine included lumber, draft animals, casks and a variety of other goods. These items were critical for the production of luxury commodities on West Indian plantations; primarily sugar, rum and molasses but also cocoa and spices. Lecture participants will learn how this trade provided a significant source of income for Mainers starting in the colonial period and continuing until the eve of the 20th century. Seth will explain how the urban topography and architecture of Maine’s largest city, Portland, was shaped by this exchange. He will also discuss the horrid conditions that enslaved Africans endured in the West Indies while they produced goods eagerly consumed in Maine.
The house will also be open for informal tours and refreshments. The tour will highlight the Vaughan’s Jamaican sugar plantations as well as their Hallowell shipping business that supplied lumber and other goods to the West Indies. It will also touch upon the Vaughans’ relatives, the Hallowells, who were shipbuilders, merchants and land barons along the Kennebec River in the 18th century.
Schedule:
6:00: House & Exhibit Open (refreshments and self-guided tours w/interpreters throughout)
7:00: Talk by historian Seth Goldstein in Garden Pavilion
8:00/8:30: House & Exhibit Open remain open until 9/9:30 (reception/refreshments and self-guided tours w/interpreters throughout)