Michigan Researchers Study Letters of Slave-Trading Family
Papers revisit long-standing taboo of mixed-race affairs
DETROIT
A collection of 10,000 letters written by a family of slave traders and studied by University of Michigan researchers touches on one of the most controversial topics of the time: mixed-race affairs and the families that resulted.
The papers of John Tailyour focus on the Scottish slave trader’s career in the 1700s and his love affair with a Black Jamaican woman, with whom he fathered several children, the Detroit Free Press reported last month.
