Crafting Freedom: The Story of John “Quash” Williams, Free Man of Color and Master Carpenter in Eighteenth-Century Charleston with Dr. Tiffany Momon of Sewanee

Event Details

Join Dr. Tiffany Momon of Sewanee: The University of the South and Founder and Co-Director of the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive for the next installment in the Charleston Museum’s 250th anniversary lecture series. This lecture takes the life of John “Quash” Williams, an enslaved and later free master carpenter living and working in eighteenth-century Charleston, South Carolina, and explores not only the impact of his skill on the domestic architecture of Charleston, but also his negotiations as an enslaved and then freed man of color within the mid-eighteenth century Lowcountry. Past scholars identified Williams’s interactions with two of South Carolina Lowcountry’s most prominent families, the family of British Army Lt. Colonel George Lucas and father of Eliza Lucas Pinckney famous for her indigo experiments and the family of attorney and member of the South Carolina House of Representatives Charles Pinckney (1699-1758). This lecture builds from that foundation, identifies many new primary sources, and reveals that the Lucas and Pinckney families were only a small portion of Williams’s remarkable life.

Registration is encouraged. This lecture is FREE for Members and FREE for the public. ***SUGGESTED DONATION $10***