4.4 Mapping Black North Enders, 1780-1810: Interview with Ryan Bachman

04/22/25 • 40 min

For the last episode of Season Four, recent Paul Revere House Research Fellow Ryan Bachman discusses his research into Black residents in the North End, in the decade that legal slavery ended in Massachusetts and the decades that followed. He highlights some of his favorite stories and discusses the challenges and opportunities of tracing people’s lives through government documents such as census data and tax records. In Our Favorite Questions, interpreters Derek and Colton talk about the power of physical places and objects in connecting with history. We’ll be back with more Revere House Radio next spring!

https://www.paulreverehouse.org/

https://www.paulreverehouse.org/

Previous Episode

4.3 “Paul Revere Didn’t Imagine Being in that Situation, Either”: Interview with Sarah McDonough

In this episode we welcome Sarah McDonough of the Lexington History Museums. We discuss what happened when Paul Revere reached Lexington, some individuals’ stories from that revolutionary moment and that era, and the magic that happens in both costumed interpretation and large reenactments like the ones coming up. In the Our Favorite Questions segment, Revere House interpreter Jay shares some details of 18th-century daily life.

Please note that the episode includes discussion of some of the violent realities of both war and slavery.

https://www.paulreverehouse.org/

Revere House Radio - 4.4 Mapping Black North Enders, 1780-1810: Interview with Ryan Bachman

Transcript

4.4 Mapping Black North Enders, 1780-1810: Interview with Ryan Bachman

Tegan 00:11

Welcome back to Revere House Radio. I'm your host, Tegan Kehoe, and for the final episode this season, we're moving past April 18 and 19th, 1775, into the next couple of decades. My guest today is Ryan Bachman, who was a research fellow with the Paul Revere House this past summer, studying Black residents of the North End neighborhood between 1780 and 1810. For thos