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Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism
By: John Henrik Clarke At the heart of the new global system of European-American materialism, from 1482 to 1536, was super exploitation of the indigenous people of the Western hemisphere and the enslavement of Africans. As a result, two worlds collided and left us with a legacy of genocidal institutionalized White supremacy. |
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Legacy of the Crossing
Chapter 1: From Africa to the Americas By: Kwasi Konadu The African Diaspora in the Americas was violently created by the institutions and individuals who engineered as well as profited from five centuries of transatlantic slaving. Any examination of the coerced mechanisms through which this diaspora was born must confront the central ideas of “slave” and “trade.” |
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Chapter 5. Shackled to the Past: The Causes and Consequences of Africa’s Slave Trades
In: Diamond J, Robinson JA Natural Experiments of History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press ; 2010. pp. 142-184. By: Nathan Nunn A statistical analysis that concludes Africa’s underdevelopment is a consequence of the slave trade. |
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Roots: The Saga of an American Family
By: Alex Haley It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent, sold into slavery in Africa, and transported to North America; it follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to the book's author, Alex Haley. |
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The African American Experience: A History of Black Americans from 1619 to 1890
By: Quintard Taylor An overview on the Black experience in the U.S.—from the origins of slavery and race, to civil war, reconstruction, the founding of Black colleges, and the first Black lawmakers |
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The Terrible Transformation
By: Public Broadcasting System A website with summaries of the European Arrival in West Africa, indentured servitude and enslavement of Black people, and the expansion of slavery in North America. |
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1619 Project
By: Nikole Hannah-Jones The 1619 Project commemorates the first enslaved Africans brought to the U.S. and examines the legacy of slavery in U.S. institutions. Text begins on page 15. |
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Infographic: The Slave-Ship Chart That Kindled The Abolitionist Movement
By: Suzanne Labarre The diagram, which visualizes an overcrowded slave ship, was an early example of graphic design that has the power of words. |
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Igbo Landing Mass Suicide (1803)
By: Samuel Momodu Igbo people from Nigeria were taken captive on a slave ship. They rebelled against their captors, then took their own lives rather than remain enslaved in the New World. |
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Before the Mayflower (Chapters 1-3)
By: Lerone Bennett Jr. Originally published in 1962, the book covers the history of Black America from 1619 to 1962. |
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The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War
By: Gerald Horne The White Pacific ranges over the broad expanse of Oceania to reconstruct the history of "blackbirding" (slave trading) in the region. It examines the role of U.S. citizens (many of them ex-slaveholders and ex-confederates) in the trade and its roots in Civil War dislocations. What unfolds is a dramatic tale of unfree labor, conflicts between formal and informal empire, white supremacy, threats to sovereignty in Hawaii, the origins of a White Australian policy, and the rise of Japan as a Pacific power and putative protector. It also pieces together a wonderfully suggestive history of the African American presence in the Pacific. |
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Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
Chapter 1: Reproduction in Bondage By: Dorothy Roberts The author exposes America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. In Chapter 1, the author discusses slave masters’ economic stake in enslaved women’s fertility. |
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Chapter 3: Agatha: White Women, Slave Owners, and the Dialectic of Racialized “Gender”
from "Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive" By: Marisa J. Fuentes In the eighteenth century, Bridgetown, Barbados, was heavily populated by both enslaved and free women. Marisa J. Fuentes creates a portrait of urban Caribbean slavery in this colonial town from the perspective of these women whose stories appear only briefly in historical records. |
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Racial Stereotypes from the Days of American Slavery: A Continuing Legacy, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1995, 25, 9 pp. 795-817
By: S. Plous and Tyrone Williams During the days of American slavery, many whites held stereotypes of Black people as inferior, unevolved, and ape-like. The present study was designed to see whether such stereotypes persist in contemporary American society. |
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The Interesting Narrative of The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African
By: Olaudah Equiano Olaudah Equiano recounts being kidnapped from Guinea in Africa, forced onto a slave ship to endure the Middle Passage, and his enslavement in the United States. |
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Translation of the Life of Omar Ibn Said
By: Omar Ibn Said Translated by: Isaac Bird The autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, an Islamic scholar kidnapped from Senegal and sold into slavery in the U.S. After covering his jail cell in Arabic writing asking to be released, he became a celebrity and was asked to write his life story. |
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Twelve Years a Slave
By: Solomon Northup Solomon Northup, a Black man who was born free in New York, details himself being tricked to go Washington, DC where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before he was able to secretly get information to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. |
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Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Negro Cargo”
By: Zora Neale Hurston Based on interviews, Barracoon tells the true story of Cudjo Lewis, who was captured at the age of 19, most likely from an area in Benin, and taken to the U.S. on the last known slave ship. |
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
By: Harriet Jacobs The autobiography of a fugitive slave. She spent seven years hiding in an addict to avoid her master’s attempts at sexual assault. She finally escaped to freedom, where her master continued to pursue her. |
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Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad
By: Constiutional Rights Foundation Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland. After escaping from slavery, she guided more than 300 slaves to freedom. |
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Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad
By: Ann Petry Harriet Tubman was born in slavery and dreamed of being free. She was willing to risk everything—including her own life—to see that dream come true. After her daring escape, Harriet became a conductor on the secret Underground Railroad, helping others make the dangerous journey to freedom. |
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
An American Slave By: Frederick Douglass Published in 1845, this memoir and treatise on abolition written by African-American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. |
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My Bondage and My Freedom
By: Frederick Douglass It is the second of three autobiographies written by Douglass, and is mainly an expansion of his first, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The book depicts in greater detail his transition from bondage to liberty. |
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The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro
By: Frederick Douglass A speech given in 1852 at a celebration for U.S. Independence Day. Frederick Douglass, recounts the events that led to U.S. independence, while arguing that the U.S. still denies freedom to Black citizens. Black Americans often post excerpts of his speech on social media on July 4th. |
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The Life and Sufferings of Leonard Black, a Fugitive from Slavery
By: Leonard Black Published in 1847, Leonard Black recounts his enslavement and separation from his family, and his escape from Maryland to New York. |
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The Great Escape from Slavery of Ellen and William Craft
By: Marian Smith Holmes Passing as a white man traveling with his servant, an enslaved wife and husband fled their masters in a thrilling tale of deception and intrigue. |
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Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery
By: William and Ellen Craft "Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom" is a written account by Ellen Craft and William Craft first published in 1860. Ellen (1826–1891) and William Craft (1824 - 1900) were slaves from Macon, Georgia in the United States who escaped to the North in December 1848 by traveling openly by train and steamboat, arriving in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. |
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Signal Songs of the Underground Railroad
By: Smithsonian Institution The Underground Railroad was a secret system that helped enslaved Black people escape from the southern slave states to northern free states and Canada, and sometimes even Mexico. The Underground Railroad wasn’t really a railroad though. The word “underground” referred to the system being a secret, and “railroad” was used because they helped transfer slaves to different places. To keep the Underground Railroad a secret, enslaved Black people used songs to hide messages about how to escape. |
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Coded Spirituals
By: Public Broadcasting System Enslaved Black people sang songs with hidden meanings, to direct other enslaved people to safe houses and directions, as they escaped from slavery. |
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Fear and Rebellion in South Carolina: The 1739 Stono Rebellion and Colonial Slave Society
By: William Stanley Chapter one is a survey of the origins of South Carolina, and the development of its slave codes. This chapter serves to illustrate the foundation of colonial slave society. Chapter two chronicles the early events of the rebellion, including an exploration of the plantation setting. Chapter three details the end of the rebellion and its suppression. Additionally, this chapter looks at how the colonial government responded to the event, and how it became wrapped up in the political dynamics of the era. |
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Chapter XII: The Stono Rebellion and Its Consequences
from “Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion” By: Peter H. Wood In September 1739 South Carolina was shaken by an incident which became known as the Stono Uprising. A group of slaves struck a violent but abortive blow for liberation which resulted in the deaths of more than sixty people. Free colonists, whose anxieties about controlling slaves had been growing for some time, saw their fears of open violence realized, and this in turn generated new fears. |
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How a Nearly Successful Slave Revolt Was Intentionally Lost to History
By: Maris Fessenden Two hundred and five years ago, on the night of January 8, 1811, more than 500 enslaved people took up arms in one of the largest slave rebellions in U.S. history. They carried cane knives (used to harvest sugar cane), hoes, clubs and some guns as they marched toward New Orleans chanting “Freedom or Death." |
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Slave Rebellion Reenactment
By: Dread Scott In 2019, artist Dread Scott organized volunteers to reenact the 1811 German Coast uprising in Louisiana as a public art performance. |
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This Far By Faith: Denmark Vesey
By: Public Broadcasting System Denmark Vesey was enslaved, purchased his freedom, and planned a rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina until he was betrayed. |
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Nat Turner (1800-1831)
By: Wilson Edward Reed, Black Past Turner received what he assumed was a sign from God when he witnessed the eclipse of the sun. After sharing this experience with a few close friends, they began to plan an insurrection. They were soon pursued by over 3,000 members of the state militia. |
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Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property
Directed by: Charles Burnett A documentary about the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner and the aftermath. |
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Maroons Within the Present Limits of the United States
By: Herbert Aptheker An ever-present feature of antebellum southern life was the existence of camps of runaway Negro slaves, often called maroons, when they all but established themselves independently on the frontier. They offered havens for fugitives, served as bases for marauding expeditions against nearby plantations and, at times, supplied the nucleus of leadership for planned uprisings. |
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The Emancipation Proclamation
By: President Abraham Lincoln President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” |
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Slavery Didn’t End on Juneteenth
By: Sharon Pruitt-Young, NPR On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, who had fought for the Union, led a force of soldiers to Galveston, Texas, to deliver a very important message: The war was finally over, the Union had won, and it now had the manpower to enforce the end of slavery. It was not uncommon for slave owners, unwilling to give up free labor, to refuse to release their slaves until forced to, in person, by a representative of the government |
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The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth
By: National Museum of African American History & Culture On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. |
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