Join historian and scholar Jonathan D. S. Schroeder for an engaging and thought-provoking discussion on slave narratives and the newly published The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography. Learn about John Swanson Jacobs, his life, and his thoughts on the state of American life, as well as the journey Schroeder went on to bring these pages to light.

This program is produced in conjunction with our Special Collections exhibition The Tinderbox of the Civil War: 1830s Abolitionism in Connecticut, on view from January 25 to May 10, 2025.