ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The National Parks Service has awarded the Missouri Botanical Garden a grant worth almost $100,000 to raise awareness of the Garden's past connection with slavery.
Historic records show that Missouri Botanical Garden founder Henry Shaw owned an unknown number of enslaved people from 1828 until at least 1860.
Michelle Bonner, who serves as the Director of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the Garden says a grant from the National Parks Service will help them advance education efforts about a difficult yet vital chapter of history.
"We discovered initially, he might've had some doubts about it in letters that he had written perhaps to his mother," said Bonner to 'Total Information A.M.' "But then something changed and he, I guess as a businessman, thought it was ok to enslave human beings."
"We've learned a lot from his business records about what he did, from tax records, census records."
Bonner says Tower Grove House is part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, as a place of escape.
The Garden is not exactly sure how many people Shaw owned, but there are newspaper accounts of the garden's founder hiring a bounty hunter to chase down enslaved who escaped.
"At some point, he hired Bernard Lynch to go after those individuals," said Bonner. "We have newspaper articles as well as receipts that showed where (Shaw) paid Lynch."
An almost $100,000 grant from the National Parks Service will help continue their education efforts about a difficult yet vital chapter of history.
"It opens up opportunities and windows to have discussion, dialogue about it," said Bonner. "But to also approach from a perspective of this is a part of history and we don't want history to repeat itself. The way that we do that is through education."
To learn more about the Garden and it's past ties to slavery, you can click here.
