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Slavery and Its Legacies Symposium

Slavery, as an institution, traces its origins back to Mesopotamia in 3500 B.C. Slavery was abolished by most nations sometime in the 19th century. Slavery’s effects, however, persisted in many nations for decades — and still persist in various forms today. The Slavery and Its Legacies Symposium examines this historical persistence of institutionalized slavery, both in the United States and in other nations.

Topics include how Reconstruction in the U.S. South affected representation and wealth; how American slavery undermined the New Deal; the long-term influence of slavery and its abolition on development, political attitudes and social capital in Brazil and Columbia; and the impact of slavery on literacy and health in Africa more than a century later.

Panel One

Jason Poulos (Duke): Amnesty Policy and Elite Persistence in the Postbellum South: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Mario Chacón (NYU & Universidad de los Andes), Jeffrey Jensen (NYU Abu Dhabi), and Sidak Ynitso (NYU): Representation and Imposed Democratization: Evidence from Black Enfranchisement during Reconstruction

Discussant: David Bateman (Cornell)

Panel Two

Soumyajit Mazumder (Ph.D. Harvard 2020): Old South, New Deal: How the Legacy of Slavery Undermined the New Deal

Discussant: Pavithra Suryanarayan (Johns Hopkins University)

Vanessa Bouaroudj and Adeel Malik (University of Oxford): Slavery and Human Capital in Africa: An Empirical Extension of Nunn (2008)

Discussant: Dozie Okoye (Dalhousie University)

Panel Three

François Seyler (Université Laval): Slavery, political attitudes and social capital: evidence from Brazil

Ali Ahmed (NYU), Marcus Johnson (CUNY, Baruch College), and Mateo Vásquez-Cortés (ITAM): Slavery, Elections, and Political Affiliations in Colombia

Discussant: Leticia Arroyo Abad (CUNY, Queens College)

Bedrosian Center