In the mid nineteenth century, when slavery still dominated much of the United States, a small number of Black professionals began using the law to fight the system. One of the most remarkable among them was Robert Morris, a...
In early 1861, as the United States moved toward civil war, a respected rabbi in New York shocked many Americans when he opened the Bible and argued that slavery was allowed by God. In a sermon that quickly spread...
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...
In slaveholding societies across the Americas, religion shaped daily life and plantation authority. Slaveholders attended church and often claimed their power over enslaved Africans was ordained by God. Within this environment, the Bible was used not only as a...
The story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings stands at the center of one of the clearest contradictions in American history. Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” yet he enslaved hundreds of people at his Monticello estate....
During the era of slavery in the Americas, many slaveholders encouraged enslaved Africans to adopt Christianity. Missionaries and pastors often preached to enslaved communities because slaveholders believed religion would make them more obedient. However, while enslaved Africans were encouraged...
Beneath the streets of some of America’s largest cities lie the graves of thousands of enslaved and freed Africans. Office towers rise above them and highways cut across them. In many places, people go about their daily lives unaware...
In the early years of the United States, openly condemning slavery in the South could cost a preacher his position. This was the reality faced by James M. Gilliland, a Presbyterian minister whose opposition to slavery led to his...
Robert Lewis Dabney was among the most influential Southern Presbyterian theologians of the nineteenth century. A pastor, seminary professor, and Confederate officer, he became a central figure in the effort to defend slavery and racial hierarchy through Christian theology...
