The photographs at the center of a long legal dispute between Harvard University and descendants of the people pictured are now headed to South Carolina. Harvard transferred the daguerreotypes from its collection to the International African American Museum in Charleston, the museum announced on Wednesday, saying the move follows a seven-year fight in court.
The museum said the 1850 images are believed to be among the first photographs taken of enslaved people. The daguerreotypes show an enslaved man identified as Renty, his daughter Delia, and five other people known as Jack, Drana, Alfred, Fassena and Jem, and were taken from several angles with the subjects shirtless.
Harvard said the photographs were commissioned by a Harvard University biologist conducting research that drew on racist assumptions, and the museum said the work was later used by slavery supporters before the Civil War. The museum plans to preserve the daguerreotypes and also display photographs made from them, with an exhibit intended to anchor the story of the seven enslaved individuals from South Carolina.
Tamara Lanier, whose lawsuit sought the photographs’ transfer, said descendants are “happy their family members are finally going back to South Carolina,” according to the museum’s announcement. Lanier said she is related to the man she calls “Papa Renty,” and her attorney Joshua Koskoff said she wanted the images brought to the South Carolina museum because it is in the state where he was enslaved and where the photos were taken.
Koskoff described the transfer as meaningful for the family, saying, “It’s almost spiritual they are coming home. They can breathe at the museum.” He also criticized Harvard’s actions during the dispute, saying Harvard “robbed them of their story” and, in another statement, that the university made money by licensing the images.
The legal conflict between Lanier and Harvard played out through courts in Massachusetts before the parties reached a deal in 2025. Harvard said it had long been eager to get the pictures to a museum but fought the lawsuit because it could not confirm Lanier’s relationship to the people in the photographs, according to the announcement.
The International African American Museum said it is recently built at Gadsden’s Wharf in downtown Charleston, and it said that almost half of the enslaved people brought to the U.S. first stepped foot in North America in the area. The museum said the new exhibit will use the daguerreotypes to detail the lives of the seven people pictured.