The Power of Art: The World Enslaved Blacksmiths Made in the Americas

Tuesday, April 01, 2025
5:00 pm- 6:30 pm
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
20 COOPER SQNEW YORK, NY 10003
3rd Fl Suite
Zoom link: https://nyu.zoom.us/j/91920117864

West Africans and West Central Africans championed ironworking centuries before they were forcibly transported to the Americas on board European and American slave ships. In the territories that became the United States and Brazil, enslaved and freed blacksmiths were highly regarded, as their skills were central for the development of the urban and plantation economies in the Americas. Therefore, in these two slave societies, being a blacksmith and being Black were often synonyms. Enslaved African blacksmiths and their descendants created and manufactured with their own hands a variety of agricultural tools and many other engines. Dreadfully, they were often also in charge of creating iron restraints such as chains, shackles, and neck collars, imprison, punish, and torture bondspeople. But enslaved and freed blacksmiths also had an important role in the struggle for self-emancipation. These ironworkers participated in the organization of slave rebellions across the Americas, especially in Brazil, the United States, and the West Indies. They also rescued bondspeople who escaped slavery wearing slave collars and chains, by sawing these monstrous devices and liberating them from iron chains, shackles, and collars. 

Drawing on a chapter of the book, The Power of Art: The World Black Artists Made in the Americas, this presentation explores the rich history of blacksmiths from Africa to the Americas. Focusing on selected cases from the United States and Brazil, Dr. Araujo show’s how Africans and their descendants used iron to resist slavery and build a world of their own. Revered by their communities, enslaved blacksmiths and their descendants continued the long-lasting tradition of their African ancestors who mastered the art of fire. They became accomplished artists in the Americas, where their creativity and resilience kept disrupting the iron chains of slavery.

Recording of Presentation

Recording of Q&A

Ana Lucia Araujo is Professor of History at the historically Black Howard University in Washington DC. She specializes in the history and memory of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade and is interested in the visual and material culture of slavery. Her recent books are Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, second edition), The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism (Cambridge University Press, 2024), and Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery (University of Chicago Press, 2024). In the United States, her work has been recently supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Getty Research Institute, and the American Philosophical Society. She is a member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples Project.