Africa

In 1873, King Kobina Gyan of Elmina, in present-day Ghana, was exiled to Sierra Leone by British colonial authorities for refusing to swear allegiance to the British Crown. His refusal cost him his kingdom, and he spent the next...

Long before African countries began gaining independence from European colonial powers, Africans were already organizing against colonial rule. One of the early figures in that struggle was André Matsoua, a Congolese political activist who challenged French colonial rule decades...

In December 1941, African miners in the Belgian Congo went on strike to demand higher wages. The cost of living had risen sharply during the Second World War, while African workers were earning far less than their European counterparts....

When European powers began their rush to conquer Africa in the nineteenth century, they did not enter a completely unknown continent. Long before European armies arrived to establish colonial administrations, missionaries had already travelled deep into African territories, established...

In January 1895, King Koko of Nembe launched one of the most daring attacks against British interests in nineteenth century West Africa. Leading about 1,500 warriors in 22 war canoes, he struck the Royal Niger Company’s headquarters at Akassa,...

When European powers carved Africa into colonies in the late nineteenth century, they faced an immediate economic problem: the people they intended to exploit had no reason to work for them. Africans across the continent were largely self-sufficient, farming...

In colonial Kenya during the 1950s, the British government built a vast network of detention camps to imprison Africans accused of resisting colonial rule. Hidden within the hills of Nyeri was one of those sites, Aguthi Concentration Camp, a...

In the late 19th century, European empires were tearing through Africa, forcing ancient kingdoms into submission. From West Africa to the Great Lakes, monarchs were stripped of power as colonial flags replaced indigenous rule. Ethiopia stood out as a...

In August 1823, one of the largest uprisings of enslaved Africans in the British Caribbean unfolded in the colony of Demerara-Essequibo, part of what is now Guyana. Known to history as the Demerara Rebellion, the event involved between 10,000...

For millions of enslaved Africans in the Americas, Christmas was not simply a religious holiday or a brief pause in labor. It was a calculated opportunity. Across plantations in the United States, the Caribbean, and other slave societies, enslaved...