Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) – Harvard University has turned over photos of what it believes are the first enslaved people in the United States to a South Carolina museum after agreeing to give up ownership of the photos in a settlement last year.
In 1850, a professor forced a photograph of an enslaved father and his daughter for a racist study in an attempt to prove the inferiority of black people. In May 2025, Harvard University agreed to relinquish ownership of the images to resolve a lawsuit by one of its descendants.
“More than 175 years after their creation in South Carolina, the 1850 daguerreotypes, believed to be the earliest known photographs of enslaved people in the United States, have returned to the state where the individuals depicted were enslaved and forcibly photographed,” the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, said in a statement.
The museum says the images are “transforming from pseudoscientific tools into portraits that commemorate the lives and humanity of the individuals they capture”.
The settlement was announced last year by the legal team representing Tamara Lanier, who fought a six-year legal battle over wrongful claims of ownership of photos taken without her ancestor’s consent.
Harvard University, based in Cambridge, Mass., said it has long been eager to place the photos in another public institution to “put them in their proper context and increase their access to all Americans.”
The images were originally commissioned by Harvard University scientist Louis Agassiz in 1850 and taken by Joseph Zealy in Columbia, South Carolina, as part of a scientific project designed to support theories of black inferiority and polygamy, the museum said.
“Today, IAAM is transforming these images into portraits of remembrance and historical truth,” it added.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Bill Burkrot)
