In the history of American slavery, some slaveholders are remembered not because of the wealth they accumulated but because of the suffering they inflicted on the Africans they enslaved. One such figure was “Big Jim” McClain, a slave master...
The Second Middle Passage was the forced relocation of enslaved Africans and African Americans from the Upper South to the expanding cotton plantations of the Deep South after the Atlantic slave trade ended in 1808. Through the domestic slave...
The history of slavery in the United States is often told through economics, labor, and politics, but one of the most intimate and horrifying dimensions of the system was the exploitation of Black women’s reproductive capacities. They were forced...
Anarcha Westcott was an enslaved African woman whose life and suffering became central to the development of modern gynecology. For decades, her story was nearly invisible, surviving only in the writings of Dr. J. Marion Sims, the physician who...
When the United States Congress voted to abolish the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, many hoped it would signal a decline in the horrors of slavery. But instead of ending human bondage, this legal milestone gave rise to one...
When the U.S. banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, Southern plantation owners could no longer import Africans. To meet rising demand for labour, they turned inward, breeding enslaved Africans already in the country. At the heart of this...
The term “fancy girls” refers to light-skinned enslaved biracial or african girls who were sold for the purpose of sexual exploitation and concubinage during the antebellum period in the United States.
These young girls, many of them barely into their...
Calvin Smith was a wealthy American planter in the antebellum South who operated a notorious slave breeding farm. His plantation was infamous for its focus on breeding biracial children, or mulattoes, who were often sold at higher prices than...
In 1840, the American slave ship Hermosa ran aground in British Bahamas while transporting 38 enslaved Africans from Richmond, Virginia, to New Orleans, Louisiana. British authorities, having abolished slavery in 1833, intervened and freed the captives, sparking a diplomatic...
The 19th century in the United States was marked by the brutal and dehumanizing institution of slavery, which included various practices that exploited enslaved Africans for economic gain. One such practice was the "stockmen trade," a term used to...
