As the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice investigates the University's historical connections to slavery and the slave trade, one direct descendant of the Brown brothers hopes to tell another part of her family's story.
More than two centuries after the University was named after Nicholas Brown, Sylvia Brown, who resides in London, began working on a book about her family's history. Her research focuses on the years between 1740 and 1840, a period that saw the University's founding in 1764, the American Revolution and a debate over the slave trade in Rhode Island - though this last element is not central to her work.
Though the slavery and justice committee has researched the Brown brothers' ties to the slave trade, Sylvia Brown hopes her account will redress what she called an "imbalance" in the portrayal of her family.
"(I'm) not trying to deny anything. (I'm) simply saying that there is a much better story to tell, but it's been neglected," she said.
After some initial research, Brown realized that her family's engagement in the slave trade played a smaller part in its legacy than recent media focus on the Browns might suggest. The committee acknowledges University benefactor John Brown was not a prominent figure in the Rhode Island slave trade, but Sylvia Brown said the degree of attention on her family - rather than broader historical questions - is misleading. "Most people were barking up the wrong tree, and the family had very little involvement in the slave trade," she said.
While some have characterized John Brown as an adamant defender of slavery, Sylvia Brown argues that he was in fact just a "consummate capitalist" who opposed government intervention in any of his many business activities. Because he lived in a century in which every aspect of life was touched by slavery, John Brown's business ventures were inevitably connected to slavery, she said. Moses Brown and Nicholas Brown Jr., the University's namesake, she added, were active abolitionists.
She recently began writing after a year and a half of research, though a release date for her book has not been determined. The book will chronicle the Brown family's evolving business ventures as emblematic of the country's parallel shift from a mercantile to an industrial economy. Sylvia Brown said her family's history tells the story of the United States' growth into an economic power on a smaller scale.
Two events triggered her inspiration for the book. When a Townsend desk on which she had done her homework as a child sold in 1989 for $12.1 million - the highest price ever paid for a piece of American furniture - Sylvia Brown gained a new interest in the value of her family's history. Her father, retired U.S. Navy Captain Nicholas Brown, sold the desk to raise money for the restoration of the Nightingale-Brown House on Benefit Street, which now houses the University's John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization.
Then, in 2003, the creation and media coverage of the University's slavery and justice committee compelled her to further explore her family's history. Thanks to her family's careful preservation of its records, Sylvia Brown had no dearth of information to work with. Now housed at the John Nicholas Brown Center, John Carter Brown Library and the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Brown family's archives represent one of the most complete records of an American family.
But Sylvia Brown said the same extensive archives that have made her research so rewarding are partly responsible for the focus on her own ancestors rather than other Rhode Island families who were more deeply implicated in the slave trade. "We're the ones providing the information, so we're the ones who've been associated with the slave trade," she said.
Though Sylvia Brown said she admires the slavery and justice committee's efforts to confront the past, she hopes it can soon begin to look toward the future: "These demons have to be put to rest, and I hope the findings of the committee will do that."
