WFU prof to explore slavery during Revolution in Asheboro library talk

Dr. Jake Ruddiman

ASHEBORO – What did slavery look like to combatants in the Revolutionary War — white, Black, American and European — as they traveled between regions?

Join Wake Forest University History professor Dr. Jake Ruddiman for “Is This the Land of Liberty? Soldiers and Slavery in the War of American Independence,” 6:30 p.m. Monday, September 30, at the Asheboro Public Library. 

The talk, supported by the Friends of the Library, is free and the public is invited.

Ruddiman will discuss his research into the travel writing of soldiers during the war. The campaigns of the American Revolution carried troops far from their homes and exposed them to unfamiliar enslaved societies. What did these military outsiders see and what did they record?

The war profoundly disrupted the institution of slavery, spreading charged rhetoric about liberty, levying new demand with mobilization and opening opportunities for freedom-seekers. What did Black Americans encountering soldiers traveling with the armies see? What new relationships could they make?

How did these observations and relationships then shape the course of the war? What were the relationships between wartime experiences and new streams of pro- and anti-slavery arguments in the Revolutionary states?

The answers, Ruddiman contends, connect the War of Independence with the generational transformation of the Revolution.

Ruddiman, who received his Ph.D. from Yale, is an associate professor of History at Wake Forest. His first book, Becoming Men of Some Consequence: Youth and Military Service in the Revolutionary War, explores the lives of young men in the Continental Army.

That project led to research into other aspects of the Revolutionary experience, including “Is This the Land of Liberty.” Across his research, Ruddiman’s work as a historian of Revolutionary America explores how people built their lives, reshaped their communities and constructed meaning for themselves and for posterity.

The library is located at 201 Worth Street. For further information, call 336-318-6803.

Learn how DNA led Cox family from ‘myth-tery’ to history in Asheboro library talk

 ASHEBORO – After years of thinking they were descended from Native Americans, one Randolph County family found out the truth through recreational DNA testing.

Join Lindsey Cox for “When Family History Turns Out to Be A Family Myth-tery,” 6:30 p.m. Monday, September 23, at the Asheboro Public Library.

Cox’s talk is free and the public is invited.

Cox will discuss about how her family found that the truth was far different than stories that had been passed down for decades: the family in fact was descended from an enslaved man named Frank Lytle.

Lytle was one of six children of Thomas Lytle, a white man who owned a plantation along Caraway Creek, and an enslaved Black woman whose name is not known.

Thomas Lytle acted to emancipate his children. Frank was freed in 1795, but his brothers and sisters had to wait until the death of Thomas Lytle’s wife in 1815.

Even then, the children and grandchildren of the sisters remained enslaved. The families were broken up in 1829 in the largest single sale of enslaved persons in Randolph County history.

As the families of Thomas Lytle’s children grew through the generations, they followed different paths. Some remain in Randolph County, but most migrated north and west. Some came to identify as white, and some as Black. Now, Lytles can be found all over the country.

Cox will share how her family — direct descendants of Frank, uncovered a remarkable family history.

The library is located at 201 Worth Street. For further information, call 336-318-6803.