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Painting of ships in Boston Harbor.

Pressured to Leave

Black refugees’ journey from Virginia to Boston after the Civil War.
by Jacqueline Jones via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 11, 2023

Stop Calling it ‘The Great Migration’

For people of color watching over their shoulder, the fear of police interference harkens back to a historical moment with a much-too-benign label.
by Brentin Mock via CityLab on July 4, 2018
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The Forced Migration of Enslaved People

An interactive set of maps and narratives of the forced migration of approximately 850,000 enslaved people from 1810-1860.
by Ed Ayers, Robert K. Nelson, Justin Madron, Nathaniel Ayers via American Panorama on December 1, 2015

Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Nine maps of the transatlantic slave trade between 1500 and 1900.
by David Eltis, David Richardson via The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database on November 18, 2010
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House.

Trump’s Gaza Plan May Mark the End of the Postwar Order

Although the West has long tolerated forced expulsions when convenient, its postwar framework at least nominally rejected them. Now the US is endorsing it.
by Dirk Moses via Jacobin on February 16, 2025
A group of indigenous Pacific Islanders forced to work on a sugar plantation, with a white overseer in the background.

How ‘Blackbirders’ Forced Tens of Thousands of Pacific Islanders Into Slavery After the Civil War

The decline of Southern industries paved the way for plantations in Fiji and Australia, where victims of “blackbirding” endured horrific working conditions.
by Shoshi Parks via Smithsonian on December 5, 2024
Painting of the Sand Creek Massacre by Robert Lindneux, c. 1935.

Happy Native American Heritage Month From the Army That Brought You the Trail of Tears

After 170 years of armed attacks, forced relocations, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Native Americans, the U.S. military wants to celebrate.
by Nick Turse via The Intercept on November 28, 2024
Painting of three Native Americans in colorful clothing, with other figures walking through forest in background.

Trails of Tears, Plural: What We Don’t Know About Indian Removal

The removal of Indigenous people was a national priority with broad consensus.
by Jeffrey Ostler via Humanities on July 2, 2024
Lagoon in Majuro Atoll with tropical trees in the background and a rainbow in the sky

On the Map

The flag of Bikini Atoll looks a lot like the American flag. It has the same red and white stripes. The resemblance is intentional.
by Carleigh Beriont via Process: A Blog for American History on December 12, 2023
An ad for a runaway slave in the Virginia Gazette, describing Thomas Greenwich, an "East-India Indian."
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“Of the East India Breed …”

The first South Asians in British North America.
by Brinda Charry via HNN on May 7, 2023
1825 painting of a white man kissing a Black woman, and a white man whipping a Black man.

Jefferson’s Secret Plan to Whiten Virginia

Jefferson’s system depended on shoring up the bulwarks of race and basing the law on a theory of government that withdrew protection from unfavored groups.
by Timothy Messer-Kruse via Commonplace on April 19, 2023
Painting depicting the Trail of Tears.

Native Removal Prior to the Indian Removal Act of 1830

To understand westward expansion, the Trail of Tears, the history of Manifest Destiny, and the impacts to Native Americans, one must understand its buildup.
by Stephanie Edwards via Readex on March 28, 2023
Cover of "The Deportation Express"

How American Deportation Trains Represent a Century of American Immigration Policy

"The Deportation Express: A History of America through Forced Removal" traces the historical roots and spatial routes of systemic denial, arrest, and removal from the United States.
by Ethan Blue via University Of California Press Blog on April 1, 2022
Men on horses walking through the desert.

How a Commissary General and His Clerks Dispossessed Thousands of Their Native Land

From Claudio Saunt's Cundill Prize-nominated "Unworthy Republic."
by Claudio Saunt via Literary Hub on October 14, 2020
Artwork depicting the Trail of Tears.

Was Indian Removal Genocidal?

Most recent scholarship, while supporting the view that the policy was vicious, has not addressed the question of genocide.
by Jeffrey Ostler via The Panorama on August 4, 2020
Map of Africa

It’s Time for the British Royal Family to Make Amends for Centuries of Profiting From Slavery

An empire built on the backs and blood of enslaved Africans.
by Brooke Newman via Slate on July 28, 2020
Trestle on Central Pacific Railroad, by Carleton Watkins, 1877.

A Campaign of Forced Self-Deportation

The history of anti-Chinese violence in Truckee, California, is as old as the town itself.
by Adam Goodman via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 1, 2020
Mexican tenor Alfonso Ortiz Tirado, La Prensa publisher Ignacio Lozano, and Hollywood actor Antonio Moreno before a performance to benefit the Mexican Clinic in San Antonio

How Three Texas Newspapers Manufactured Three Competing Images of Immigrants

In Depression-era San Antonio, polarized portraits of Mexicans appealed to the biases of readers.
by Melita M. Garza via Zócalo Public Square on December 5, 2019
Military headstones for American Indians at the site of the Carlisle Indian School.

The U.S. Stole Generations of Indigenous Children to Open the West

Indian boarding schools held Native American youth hostage in exchange for land cessions.
by Nick Estes via High Country News on October 14, 2019

Beyond the Middle Passage

Intra-American trafficking magnified slavery’s impact.
by Robert Pollie via Inqury @ UC Santa Cruz on July 1, 2018

Part of the Long History of Child Trafficking: 18th-Century French Louisiana

In the 1720s, French colonial authorities seized children off the streets of Paris and forced them to settle the New World.
by Julia M. Gossard via The Junto on June 27, 2018

How I Feel As a Native Woman When Trump Idolizes Andrew Jackson

Trump has called Andrew Jackson a "military hero and genius and a beloved president."
by Adrienne Keene via Teen Vogue on April 19, 2017
Enslaved people being marched from Virginia to Tennessee.

Retracing Slavery's Trail of Tears

America's forgotten migration – the journeys of a million African-Americans from the tobacco South to the cotton South
by Edward Ball via Smithsonian on November 1, 2015

37 Maps That Explain How America Is a Nation of Immigrants

It's impossible to understand the country without knowing who's been kept out, who's been let in, and how they've been treated once they arrive.
by Dara Lind via Vox on January 12, 2015

These Maps Reveal How Slavery Expanded Across the United States

As the hunger for more farmland stretched west, so too did the demand for enslaved labor.
by Lincoln Mullen via Smithsonian on May 15, 2014
Election Day in Philadelphia, John Lewis Krimmel.

A More Imperfect Union: How Differing National Visions Divided the North and the South

On the fragile facade of republicanism in 19th century America.
by Alan Taylor via Literary Hub on May 21, 2024

Jimmy Carter Stood up for Palestinians. Why Won’t Today’s Democrats?

At the height of George W. Bush’s War on Terror, Jimmy Carter had the courage to call out Israel for its human rights abuses.
by Alex Skopic via Current Affairs on November 9, 2023

Racecraft and the 1619 Project

Historian Barbara J. Fields explains why you can't understand what happened in 1619 without understanding what happened in 1607.
by Center on Modernity in Transition via YouTube on May 4, 2022
Lithograph of the waterfront in Alexandria, Virginia 1836.

The Life and Death of an All-American Slave Ship

How 19th century slave traders used, and reused, the brig named Uncas.
by Joshua D. Rothman, Benjamin Skolnik via Slate on December 4, 2021
A group of formerly enslaved people at a county almshouse, c. 1900.

Juneteenth Is About Freedom

On Juneteenth, we should remember both the struggle against chattel slavery and the struggle for radical freedom during Reconstruction.
by Dale Kretz via Jacobin on June 19, 2021
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