Renty Taylor

Renty Taylor ( – after ), also known as Papa Renty, was a man born in the Congo Basin. He was captured and brought to the United States, where he was sold as a slave. He worked on a cotton plantation owned by Benjamin Franklin Taylor (1791–1852). He was one of the subjects of the oldest known photographs of slaves, which were taken in March 1850 by Joseph T. Zealy under the supervision of Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz, whose ideas were used to support the enslavement of Africans in the United States and promote the now-discredited theory of scientific racism.

Biography Renty Taylor was born around 1775 in the Congo Basin; his birth name is unknown. He was captured by slave traders and arrived in New Orleans on a Spanish slave ship around 1800. during the early 1800s and he eventually made his way to the Edgehill plantation at Columbia, South Carolina. Using a Webster’s Blue Back Speller, he taught himself and other slaves how to read, despite anti-literacy laws in the United States. he was subsequently moved with his daughter Delia to the plantation of Benjamin Franklin Taylor (1791–1852), who was the son of Thomas Taylor. Agassiz left the images to Harvard University, and they remained at the Peabody Museum until 1976 when they were re-discovered by Ellie Reichlin.

In 1852, Renty and Delia's names appeared on a probate inventory of Benjamin Franklin Taylor's slaves. He eventually took on the name Renty Taylor sometime after the end of the American Civil War.

Personal life

Renty Taylor had two known children: a daughter named Delia Taylor and a son named Renty Thompson (1850–1945). He was possibly also the father of Hector, Caesar, Molly, and July, and his wife was probably Eady. while Renty Thompson was sold to a different slave owner in 1860. The lawsuit was supported by forty-three living descendants of Louis Agassiz, they wrote a letter of support that read in part "For Harvard to give the daguerreotypes to Ms. Lanier and her family would begin to make amends for its use of the photos as exhibits for the white supremacist theory Agassiz espoused”, and that everyone must evaluate fully "his role in promoting a pseudoscientific justification for white supremacy." Lanier appealed shortly afterwards. The photographs were finally transferred to the International African American Museum on 11 March 2026.

Documentary The World Is Watching: Woman Suing Harvard for Photos of Enslaved Ancestors Says History Is At Stake (Video-Interview with Tamara Lanier, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Papa Renty), Democracy Now!, 29 March 2019