An article on the Atlantic slave trade by Dr. John Harris, recently named McDonald-Boswell Assistant Professor of History at Erskine College, was published Jan. 28 on the website of The History Channel.

Entitled “The Atlantic Slave Trade Continued Illegally in America Until the Civil War,” Harris’s article is introduced with an observation on the transport of captive Africans after the slave trade was banned by Congress in 1807: “‘Cargo’ was delivered to the southern states and the West Indies, but much of the shipping originated in New York City—in the abolitionist North.”

Read the article here.

Harris, who joined the Erskine College faculty in 2017, is the author of The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage, published in 2020 by Yale University Press. To complete his research for the book, Harris accessed archives on both sides of the Atlantic—in Cuba, England, Portugal, Spain, and the United States.

Provost of the College Dr. Tom Hellams said Harris was officially named to the McDonald-Boswell Professorship at a meeting of the faculty Jan. 21.

“We applaud his achievements, and it is our hope that a more formal recognition of Dr. Harris will be planned when restrictions on large gatherings are lifted,” Hellams said.