Slavery

In the shadowed history of the United States, few places symbolize the brutalities inflicted upon enslaved African people as Lumpkin’s Jail in Richmond, Virginia. Known as one of the largest and most notorious slave jails in the 19th century...

Born in 1709, Mathieu Léveillé was an enslaved African man who endured years of brutal oppression and was ultimately forced to become an executioner in New France (modern-day Canada) as punishment for attempting to escape his shackles. Before his forced...

The story of Marie Joseph Angélique stands as one of the most significant episodes in the history of slavery in Canada, exposing the harsh realities of slavery and the brutal treatment of enslaved people. Born in 1705, Angélique was an...

In the early 18th century, the island of Curaçao, a Dutch colony in the Caribbean, was a hub of the transatlantic slave trade. During this time, the island saw few significant rebellions. However, one uprising in late 1716 would...

Peter von Scholten was a Danish colonial governor who abolished slavery in the Danish West Indies, now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1848.

Thomas Thistlewood was an 18th-century British plantation overseer and slave owner, notorious for his brutal treatment of enslaved Africans in Jamaica. Among the numerous atrocities recorded in his diaries, which he kept meticulously from 1750 to 1786, one of...

The 1733 Akwamu slave insurrection on St. John, which lasted from November 1733 until August 1734, was one of the earliest and longest slave rebellions in the Americas. The insurrection started on 23 November 1733, when 150 Akwamu slaves...

The Memphis Massacre of 1866 was a sequence of violent incidents that took place in Memphis, Tennessee from May 1 to 3, 1866, and targeted African Americans. The racial rioting resulted in 48 fatalities, several rapes, the burning of 91 homes, churches, and 12 black schools.

Ottobah Quobna Cugoano was a Ghanaian abducted as a child and trafficked to Britain who rose above the horrors of slavery to become a famous abolitionist, working for the freedom and dignity of his fellow oppressed people.

Domingo Biohó Also known as Domingo Biohó, was born in the 16th century into a royal family that ruled Bioho one of the Bissagos Islands off the coast of what is today Guinea-Bissau. He was kidnapped by the Portuguese...