During the era of chattel slavery in the United States, Southern states actively suppressed the education of African Americans, both enslaved and free. Alabama, like many other states, recognized literacy as a potential threat to the institution of slavery....
Margaret Crittendon Douglass was a white woman and former slaveholder, who was convicted and jailed in Norfolk, Virginia, for teaching Black children to read. Her story is a reminder of the brutal measures taken to suppress Black education during...
The Nocra prison camp was an Italian concentration camp on the island of Nocra, off the coast of Massawa, in Italian colony of Eritrea, that was used to intern freedom fighters. The camp played a significant role in Italy’s...
The Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits, is a Catholic religious order renowned for its commitment to education, missionary work, and theological scholarship. However, their history includes a troubling chapter: the 1838 sale of 272 enslaved Africans to...
Henry Edward Clonard Keating, born on December 13, 1871, in Nova Scotia, was a military officer who served in the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF). His brief but intense career unfolded during the British colonial campaign in West...
Blackshear was a man known for his towering strength, standing six feet four inches and weighing around 250 pounds. Not only was he a skilled craftsman and mechanic, but he was also exploited for another purpose: breeding children who...
The transatlantic slave trade is rife with figures who, through their actions, defined the brutal systems of commerce that sustained the colonial economies of the Caribbean. Among them, Alexandre Lindo, a Jewish Jamaican slave trader and ship captain, stands...
The Samba Rebellion of 1731, a purported slave revolt in French colonial Louisiana, remains one of the lesser-known events in early American history, recorded primarily through the writings of Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, a French historian who lived...
Koitalel Arap Samoei was a legendary figure and resistance leader among the Nandi people of Kenya, known for his courageous opposition to British colonial rule. In 1905, under the guise of a peace treaty, Koitalel was lured into a...
Henrietta Wood holds a unique place in American history as the formerly enslaved woman who won the largest reparations verdict ever awarded for slavery in the United States.
Born into slavery in Kentucky, Henrietta Wood’s life began in bondage under...
