Harvard Gives Up Ownership of Slave Photos After Descendant’s Lawsuit

Harvard University will give up ownership of two 175-year-old daguerreotypes depicting an enslaved father and daughter, following the resolution of a years-long legal battle with a woman who claims to be a descendant of the individuals in the photographs.

Tamara Lanier sued Harvard for emotional distress in 2019 over its possession of two daguerreotypes which she says are portraits of her enslaved ancestors.

The chilling daguerreotype photographs, which show two enslaved individuals named Renty and his daughter Delia stripped to their waist, are considered some of the earliest that show enslaved people in the United States. The sad photos of Renty and Delia were part of a project commissioned by Louis Agassiz, a prominent Harvard professor and zoologist, who used them as scientific evidence for a discredited theory that Black people were inferior.

In her lawsuit, Lanier argued that Renty and Delia were her ancestors and that the photos were taken against their will. She demanded that Harvard stop licensing its photos for profit and that the university return the daguerreotypes.

According to a report by The New York Times today, the six-year legal battle between Harvard and Lanier will end in a settlement. However, the two daguerreotypes will not be returned to the woman claiming to be the subjects’ descendant.

Instead, the photographs — along with images of five other enslaved individuals — are expected to be transferred to the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, where the subjects were originally enslaved.

Tamara Lanier, along with her attorney Benjamin Crump, celebrated the outcome and the legal precedent it establishes for such images. The resolution of the case is expected to be formally announced later today.

“I have been at odds with Harvard over the custody and care of my enslaved ancestors, and now I can rest assured that my enslaved ancestors will be traveling to a new home,” Lanier says in a statement to The New York Times.

“They will be returning to their home state where this all began, and they will be placed in an institution that can celebrate their humanity.”

“This case is so precedent-setting in so many ways,” Crump tells the news outlet. “It does leave a bright trail for not just us but the next generation of civil rights lawyers to take up the cross and to continue to defend Black humanity on every level.”

Harvard did not respond to The New York Times’ requests for comment. America’s oldest university has been at the center of an escalating battle with the Trump administration. Trump is set to order federal agencies to cancel all government contracts with Harvard worth an estimated $100 million.