During the years of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, Africans used many methods to resist their captors. While much of the resistance included escaping to freedom, there were times when slaves outright rebelled for their liberty. In one of the...
J. Marion Sims was a 19th-century American physician who came to be celebrated as the “father of modern gynecology.” But behind his medical legacy lies a deeply disturbing truth. Sims built his reputation by experimenting on enslaved Black women...
The Jesus Maria was a Spanish slave ship operating in the early 19th century during the height of the transatlantic slave trade. Named after two of Christianity’s most sacred figures, Jesus and Mary, the ship was anything but holy....
From its implementation in 1948 to its dissolution over forty years later, the Apartheid government of South Africa was determined to deny equal rights to its African citizens. Apartheid instituted legal segregation, with its goal being to keep Black...
In 1837, a Portuguese slave ship named Arrogante was intercepted off the coast of Cuba by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Snake. What at first seemed like a typical enforcement of Britain’s anti-slavery patrols soon spiraled into one of...
Lewis C. Robards was a slave trader who ran a slave jail in Lexington, Kentucky, where he became notorious for trafficking what the white slave trade called “fancy girls”, light-skinned Black girls and women who were specifically sold for...
On the morning of March 28, 1941, deep in a wooded ravine at Fort Benning, Georgia, the lifeless body of Private Felix Hall was discovered. He had been hanging from a tree by a noose, his hands tied behind...
Léon Rom was a Belgian colonial officer who served in the Congo Free State during the late 19th century and became notorious for his brutality. As a commander in King Leopold II’s Force Publique, Rom reportedly decorated his station...
Charles Turner Torrey was an American pastor, journalist, and one of the most daring and politically-minded abolitionists of the 19th century. He played a major role in the fight against slavery by organizing direct actions to help enslaved Africans...
From 1885 to 1908, DR Congo was transformed into a massive forced labor camp. This territory, then known as the Congo Free State, was unlike any other colony in Africa. It wasn’t controlled by a government or a European...
