Genealogist Discusses Early Amherst Trustee’s Connection to Slavery

On Tuesday, Nicka Sewell-Smith, a documentarian and genealogist, presented her research into the Trask 250, a group of 250 enslaved people owned by the Trask family and their nearly 10,000 descendants. The event was sponsored by the Steering Committee on Reckoning with the Racial History of Amherst College and followed Sewell-Smith’s 2021 visit to the college.

Israel Trask was an early trustee of Amherst College and secured the charter for the college from the State of Massachusetts. During that same time, he had financial ties to his family’s plantations that enslaved hundreds of people. Trask established plantations that enslaved hundreds of people in Louisiana and Mississippi with his brother before nominally giving up his share to him in 1822. However, he continued to maintain interests in the business through loans he provided his brother.

Sewell-Smith discussed how the Trask family’s involvement with slavery challenges the notion that slavery was just a Southern matter. She said that broadening one’s perspective beyond Southern plantations to look at slavery’s national financial and social connections “completely shifts your whole thought process of what the system of slavery was like.”

Her talk traced the history of the Trask 250 and their descendants throughout American history, following those who enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War to those that participated in the Civil Rights Movement, and beyond. Sewell-Smith herself is a Trask 250 descendent, other members of the extended family include author Richard Wright and musician George "Buddy" Guy.

Although Sewell-Smith utilized official documents such as birth certificates, death certificates, and mortgages to trace back the family line, she also noted that mementos that anyone might have like souvenirs from family reunion booklets or programs from funerals or marriages were also valuable historical documents that could be easily lost.

“Sometimes, we prioritize the institutional archive over our home archives. And then when the folks get to dying and the kids be in there throwing everything away,” Sewell-Smith said. “We lose all of that.”

This year marks 160 years since 1865: the end of the Civil War, ratification of the 13th Amendment, and the emancipation of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, which is celebrated on Juneteenth. Sewell-Smith said that she found it “no coincidence that this [Trump] administration that we are now under has chosen not to honor Black History Month and Black history this year” given the significance of these dates.

In light of the historical significance of the many anniversaries this year, Sewell-Smith gave the audience a message to keep with them beyond the talk. “This is your job. Keep it on your lips. Remind people of what the anniversaries are for this year,” Sewell-Smith said.

Aneeka Henderson, associate professor of American studies, is currently conducting similar genealogical work and attended the event. Reflecting on Sewell-Smith’s talk, she agreed on the necessity of remembering Black history today.

“I think it’s really important for us, thinking about where we are in our positions of power and privilege, and thinking about the type of research we can do to find out where we sit in this larger narrative of history,” Henderson said.