The Barbados Museum & Historical Society (BMHS) is proud to announce the launch of the 2024 Lecture Series, which will be held under the theme: “Newton Uncovered: Exploring the 21st Century Legacy of the Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton.” The launch will take at the BMHS on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024 at 11:00 am.
As we celebrate 90 years of being the foremost authority on Barbadian history, heritage and culture, the Barbados Museum & Historical Society, through its Newton Development Subcommittee is set to host a series of seminars and in-person tours to accompany seminar themes monthly. These lectures serve as a prelude to an engaging lineup of seminars and tours, scheduled monthly, designed to raise public awareness and enhance accessibility to the Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton.
Chair of the Committee, Dr Tara Inniss, lecturer in History at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, notes, “The committee has much work to do to continue to highlight the role of enslaved Africans in building our society. “We have gleaned so much of the lives of enslaved Barbadians from Newton plantation from both the archaeology and the records that exist for Newton and we are called on to make this an important site for the commemoration and reflection of their contributions to Barbados.” Newton Enslaved Burial Ground is the largest and earliest undisturbed sugar plantation communal enslaved burial ground found in the Western Hemisphere. “This site is a resting place for our African ancestors who were so cruelly removed from their homelands and forced to endure the horrors of slavery.”
The series will kick off with two thought-provoking lectures on May 17th, 2024, by the Deputy Director of the Barbados Museum, Mr. Kevin Farmer: Archaeology at the Centre and on May 30th, 2024, by Dr. Tara Inniss: History at the Core. Other lecturers in this year’s series include Dr. Karl Watson and Dr Derryck. Murray.
