Fearing that black literacy would prove a threat to the slave system, whites in many colonies instituted laws forbidding slaves to learn to read or write and making it a crime for others to teach them.
Isabella Gibbons, born around 1836, holds a significant place in history as an African woman who endured the hardships of slavery while working as a cook at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
While European slave traders were the driving force behind this brutal system, they were not the only participants. African societies also played a role in the capture, sale, and transport of enslaved people.
Born in Guinea, Joseph Antonio Emidy's life journey was marked by incredible resilience, talent, and a relentless pursuit of his passion for music. From his humble beginnings as a child sold into slavery, Emidy's story took him across continents, leaving a lasting impact on the musical landscape of early 19th-century Cornwall.
Buck breaking is said to have originated during the Atlantic slave trade, primarily in the Caribbean. It emerged as a means of punishment for rebellious african male slaves, intended to crush their spirits and prevent future resistance
The Haiti Massacre occurred in the aftermath of the final victory of the Haitian Revolution in 1804. Deeply scarred by the horrors of slavery, and driven by a desire for retribution, Dessalines and his followers unleashed a wave of violence against former slave owners and their families.
The Signares were a group of powerful African women in the Atlantic slave trade who controlled the export of enslaved Africans from West Africa to the Americas in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Sebastián Lemba was a brave and fearless leader who led a rebellion against Spanish colonial rule on the island of Hispaniola (Dominican Republic) during the 1540s.
Captain Davy was an eighteenth-century Maroon officer who gained notoriety by killing Coromantee Tacky (chief) of the tribe, the leader of Tacky's Revolt, the most dangerous slave rebellion in eighteenth-century Jamaica.
