Stolen, Hidden, Reclaimed: 1850 Daguerreotypes Return to IAAM in Charleston
- Javar Juarez
- 2 hours ago
- 8 min read
By Javar Juarez | CUBNSC | History
CHARLESTON, S.C. — There are stories that wound and stories that restore. On Wednesday at the International African American Museum, both happened at once.
In a deeply emotional ceremony on sacred ground at Gadsden’s Wharf, the museum formally welcomed the 1850 daguerreotypes connected to Renty, Delia, Alfred, Drana, Fassena, Jack and Jem—among the earliest known photographs of enslaved people in the United States.
Once commissioned for a Harvard-backed pseudoscientific project meant to deny Black humanity, the images are now under the stewardship of an institution dedicated to telling the truth that powerful institutions once tried to bury.
It was not merely about artifacts returning south. It was about South Carolina, through the International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, reclaiming a history that elite institutions long possessed, interpreted, and controlled.
That is why the moment carried such weight.
This was not simply an unveiling. It was a reckoning.
Historians present on Wednesday reminded the audience of another essential truth: this is not only a Charleston story. It is also a Columbia story, tied directly to the founding of South Carolina’s capital city.
The Long Journey From Columbia to Harvard — And Back to South Carolina
In 1850, Swiss-born Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, one of the most influential natural scientists of his era, traveled to South Carolina with a deeply troubling purpose.
Agassiz promoted polygenism, a racist theory claiming that human races were created separately and that Africans were biologically inferior to Europeans.
To support that theory, he commissioned photographer Joseph T. Zealy to create a series of daguerreotypes of enslaved people in South Carolina.
The images were meant to serve as visual “evidence” for Agassiz’s pseudoscientific claims about racial hierarchy.
Enslaved men and women were forced before the camera—many stripped to the waist—posed and photographed without consent so their bodies could be cataloged and studied in an attempt to validate a lie about Black inferiority.
What is often missing from the national telling of this story is where these individuals lived.
They were enslaved on plantations tied to Columbia, South Carolina.
According to Dr. Bobby Donaldson, Associate Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and Executive Director of the USC Center for Civil Rights History and Research, archival evidence confirms that Renty and Delia were enslaved by Benjamin Franklin Taylor (B.F. Taylor), the son of Columbia founder Colonel Thomas Taylor, who is buried to this day in downtown Columbia at the corner of Barnwell and Richland Streets.
The Taylor family played a significant role in the early development of Columbia. Their plantations and economic power were part of the system that built the capital city in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
That reality places the story of these photographs squarely within the early foundations of Columbia itself.
For decades, the images remained largely hidden inside the archives of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Outside academic circles, few people knew they existed.
Yet the life of the man most closely associated with the photographs—Renty—reveals a story far more powerful than the racist experiment meant to define him.
Historical records suggest Renty was born around 1775 in the Congo region of Central Africa, though his original African name has been lost to history. As a young man he was captured by slave traders and forced across the Atlantic, eventually arriving in New Orleans aboard a Spanish slave ship around 1800.
He was later purchased by Colonel Thomas Taylor and eventually lived and labored at Edgehill Plantation near Columbia.
Despite the brutal restrictions imposed on enslaved people, Renty became known for something remarkable.
He taught himself to read.
Using Webster’s Blue Back Speller, one of the most widely used schoolbooks of the nineteenth century, Renty learned to read and quietly taught other enslaved Africans as well.
This act of intellectual resistance carried enormous risk.
Across the American South—including South Carolina—laws criminalized teaching enslaved people to read or write, driven by fears that literacy might inspire rebellion or escape.
For Renty, literacy became an act of dignity and defiance.
The same man who risked punishment to educate himself and others would later be forced to stand before Zealy’s camera in 1850, stripped and photographed so Harvard scientists could claim Africans were inferior.
The contrast reveals the deeper truth of the daguerreotypes.
The photographs were meant to erase the humanity of the people in them.
Instead, Renty’s life reveals intelligence, courage, and a powerful connection to African identity that no photograph—no matter how cruelly conceived—could ever erase.
A Descendant’s Fight for Justice
The daguerreotypes might still be hidden in Harvard’s archives if not for the determination of Tamara Lanier.
In 2017, the Connecticut resident began researching her family history after her mother’s final request that she trace their lineage. Through oral history and historical research, Lanier identified Renty as her direct ancestor.
What she discovered next stunned her.
Photographs of Renty and his daughter Delia, taken in South Carolina in 1850, were being held by Harvard’s Peabody Museum.
Her lawsuit quickly sparked a national debate over who should control historical artifacts created through exploitation and racial violence.
Courts initially ruled in Harvard’s favor. Under long-standing property law, photographs are legally owned by the photographer—in this case Joseph T. Zealy—meaning Harvard retained possession.
But the legal question did not resolve the moral one.
Lanier argued that the images themselves were products of coercion and humiliation, created to advance a racist theory of human hierarchy. Allowing Harvard to retain control, she argued, prolonged the same dehumanization the photographs were meant to promote.
As Lanier explained:
“Lanier versus Harvard was never just about photographs. It was about restoring the dignity of my ancestors and making sure the world understood that these were not specimens — they were people.”
The case unfolded over several years and drew national attention.
In 2025, after years of litigation and public pressure, the dispute reached a settlement.
Harvard agreed to relinquish the daguerreotypes.
Not to a private collector.
Not to another university archive.
But to the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.
For Lanier, the return of the images was never negotiable.
“There would have been no settlement without the daguerreotypes,” she said. “That was non-negotiable. My ancestors were taken, exploited, and displayed. Bringing them home was the only acceptable outcome.”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who joined the legal effort, called the settlement historic.
“For generations powerful institutions controlled the narrative of Black suffering,” Crump said. “Today we take a step toward correcting that history.”
Crump emphasized that the victory was both legal and symbolic.
“We pay the highest respect to Papa Renty and to Delia and the others whose images were taken without consent. What was once used to dehumanize them will now help educate the world.”
Attorney Josh Koskoff said the outcome reflected a deeper definition of justice.
“The goal was not simply financial compensation,” Koskoff said. “The goal was justice. Justice meant returning these images to a place where they could be interpreted with dignity and historical truth.”
A Homecoming at Gadsden’s Wharf
The International African American Museum stands at Gadsden’s Wharf, where historians estimate nearly half of the Africans forced into North America first arrived during the transatlantic slave trade.
It is here that the daguerreotypes have now returned.
IAAM President and CEO Dr. Tonya Matthews described the location as central to understanding the moment.
“The International African American Museum rises above the former site of the nation’s most prolific transatlantic slave trading port, Gadsden’s Wharf,” Matthews said. “When you visit here, you are embraced by two understandings: that the story of slavery is neither the beginning nor the end of the African American journey — it is in the middle. And that African American history uniquely holds both trauma and joy at the same time.”
During the ceremony, the names connected to the photographs were spoken clearly.
“Every name matters. Renty, Delia, Jack, Drana, Jem, Alfred, Fassena,” Matthews said. “These were human beings whose lives were reduced to scientific objects. Today we restore their names, their dignity, and their humanity.”
The images themselves have not changed.
But their meaning has.
“These daguerreotypes were created to serve a lie about Black inferiority,” Matthews said. “At IAAM they will serve a different purpose — to tell the truth.”
From Pseudoscience to Portrait
Daguerreotypes, introduced in 1839, represent one of the earliest forms of photography. Created by exposing a polished, silver-coated copper plate to light and chemically developing the image, the process produced remarkably detailed portraits that are also extremely fragile.
The daguerreotypes connected to Renty, Delia, and the others are now more than 175 years old, making their preservation a delicate responsibility.
Because the plates are highly sensitive to light, they cannot be displayed for extended periods. Even reproductions must be tightly controlled. Museum specialists say the images can safely receive only about ten hours of light exposure each year.
“These are incredibly fragile objects,” said Malika Pryor, Chief Learning and Engagement Officer at IAAM. “But just as important is the work of restoring the human stories connected to them.”
Through IAAM’s Family History Center, researchers will begin the long process of identifying and locating the descendants of the people photographed.
Tracing the families of Renty, Delia, Alfred, Drana, Fassena, Jack, and Jem could take years, requiring genealogical research, archival investigation, and collaboration with communities across the country.
Once created as instruments of racial pseudoscience, the daguerreotypes now carry a different meaning.
They are no longer evidence for a theory of human hierarchy.
They are portraits of individuals whose lives—and whose descendants—remain part of the American story.
Why IAAM Matters
The return of the daguerreotypes underscores why institutions like the International African American Museum exist.
IAAM provides a place where African American history can be presented clearly and truthfully, grounded in scholarship and community stewardship.
Dr. Tonya Matthews noted that protecting stories like these requires sustained public commitment. The museum opened with nearly 50,000 charter members, and Matthews said reaching 100,000 members would signal a national commitment to preserving these histories.
Membership support helps fund exhibitions, educational programs, and preservation efforts for rare artifacts like the daguerreotypes.
More than 175 years after they were taken, the photographs have traveled an extraordinary path—from plantations in South Carolina, to the archives of Harvard University, and now to the International African American Museum in Charleston.
Once created to support a lie about Black inferiority, the images now testify to something far more enduring.
Survival.
Memory.
And the unbreakable dignity of a people whose story cannot be erased.
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