Slavery North invites you to the second in our series of three Fellow Talks in Fall 2025. York University PhD candidate in History Fabio Silva Magalhaes shares his archival research on an early case of “Liberated Africans” in Philadelphia.
This hybrid talk is open to students, faculty, staff, and members of the public.
Date/Time: Thursday, November 13, 2025, 2:30-3:30 PM (EST)
Location: Room 118, Ground Floor, 472 North Pleasant Street, UMass Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA, 01003
Online via Zoom:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/98706215356
Meeting ID: 987 0621 5356
Speaker: Fabio Silva Magalhaes, Graduate Student Fellow, Fall 2025
Moderator: Dr. Martha McNamara, Associate Professor of Public History & Associate Director Slavery North
Lecture: The Ganges Affair: A Case of Early Liberated Africans in Philadelphia, 1800
Lecture abstract:
This presentation shares a remarkable case in which two American slave schooners were seized by a US sloop-of-war for illegally transporting 135 enslaved Africans who became apprentices after their landing in Philadelphia, in the summer of 1800. This case anticipates, by at least seven years, the model of “Liberated Africans” as adopted by the British Crown in Sierra Leone and the West Indies.
Bio:
Fabio Silva Magalhaes, also known as Fabio Cascadura, is a historian, musician, and music producer born in Bahia, Brazil. He is currently a PhD candidate in History at York University, Toronto, Canada, where he also earned his MA in 2021. His doctoral research examines the “Ganges Affair,” an early case of “Liberated Africans” in the United States in 1800.
Since 2018, Cascadura has contributed to several academic projects, including Equiano’s World, dedicated to the life of Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano); Freedom Narratives; and the York Masters and Servants Project, where he digitized nearly 4,000 statutes on servitude in the English-speaking world. He also served as research coordinator for Phase 1 of the Harriet Tubman Institute Virtual Museum. His research interests include slavery, the slave trade, and newspaper reports published in multiple languages.
Before academia, he led the Brazilian rock band Cascadura for 25 years. He is currently a recipient of the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship (2023–2027) and the York University Fieldwork Fellowship (2025–2026).
