Slavery's Archive, Slavery's Memory: Telling the Story of Gilbert Hunt, Hero of the Richmond Theatre Fire of 1811

In December of 1811, enslaved blacksmith Gilbert Hunt helped save about a dozen white women from a horrific theatre fire in Richmond, Virginia, by catching them as they came out of a third-story window. This article examines this story of Hunt's heroism in the broader context of Euro-Virginians' changing understandings of race and slavery between 1811 and the Civil War. It also explores how Hunt has been remembered in Richmond and environs since emancipation and how historians have written about him.