On July 1, 2022, Celia E. Naylor, professor of Africana studies and history, published her new book, Unsilencing Slavery. The work provides a microhistory of enslaved people’s experiences at Rose Hall Plantation, the site of an 18th-century Georgian plantation mansion in Jamaica famous for the eponymous ghost based on Herbert G. de Lisser’s 1929 novel, The White Witch of Rosehall.
Naylor’s interdisciplinary examination engages different modes of history making, history telling, and truth telling to excavate the lives of enslaved people, highlighting enslaved women as they navigated the violence(s) of the Jamaican slavocracy. Moving beyond the legend, she examines iterations of the afterlives of slavery in the ongoing construction of slavery museums, memorializations, and movements for Black lives and the enduring case for Black humanity. Alongside her book, she has created a website as another way for various audiences to learn more about the enslaved people at Rose Hall. The website will be launched on August 6, 2022, which marks the 60th anniversary of Jamaica’s independence, as well as part of Jamaica’s annual “Emancipendence” celebration.