The International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, South Carolina, has officially acquired a set of 15 daguerreotypes, dating to 1850, that scholars believe to be the earliest known photographs taken of enslaved Americans. The seven enslaved people photographed for the series are identified as Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty; Renty and Delia were father and daughter, respectively, as were Jack and Drana. “The 1850 Daguerreotypes,” as the IAAM is now calling the collection, were taken by J. T. Zealy in South Carolina, where the sitters had been enslaved, more than 175 years ago, and just over a decade after the invention of the daguerreotype. The images show each subject from the waist up, shirtless, and from frontal and profile view. They were commissioned by Louis Agassiz, a 19th-century natural historian and a professor at Harvard University, which owned the photographs until recently, to advance racist ideology about Black people.…