Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 61–90 of 355 results. Go to first page
Drawing of enslaved persons harvesting sugarcane.

Wesley, Whitefield, and a Gospel That Disrupts

Two preachers who shaped American Christianity diverged sharply on whether to protest or exploit slavery, with consequences that persist today.
A Denmark Vesey monument in Hampton Park in Charleston, South Carolina.

Denmark Vesey’s Bible

The leader of a would-be South Carolina slave rebellion was hanged 200 years ago. A new account is a must-read.
An enslaved Alabama family and the question of generational wealth in the US

An Enslaved Alabama Family and the Question of Generational Wealth in the US

Wealthy planter Samuel Townshend wanted to leave this estate to his children when he died—an ordinary enough wish. The trouble was: his children were enslaved.
Chains with ivy on it

Endowed by Slavery

Harvard made headlines by announcing that it would devote $100 million to remedying “the harms of the university’s ties to slavery.”
Image from the 1860 US Federal Census Mortality Schedule

Sarah

An 1860 census record offers a glimpse into the choices available to pregnant women who were enslaved.
Horses and carriages in front of funeral home

Report of Action Not Received

An accounting of racist murders in nineteenth-century America.
A horse and jockey race by the crowd at the Kentucky Derby.

The Complicated Story Behind The Kentucky Derby’s Opening Song

Emily Bingham’s new book explores the roots of the Kentucky Derby’s anthem. It may not be pretty, but it’s important to know.
1861 engraving of Slaves for sale, a scene in New Orleans.

An Enduring Legacy: Financial Institutions, the Horrors of Slavery, and the Need for Atonement

Historian Daina Ramey Berry's April 2022 congressional testimony on the role of banks and insurers in US slavery.
Painting of George Washington in New York, 1783, surrounded by a crowd.

The Many American Revolutions

Woody Holton’s "Liberty is Sweet" charts not only the contest with Great Britain over “home rule” but also the internal struggle over who should rule at home. 
Illustration of a giant tree in a swamp

The Hidden and Eternal Spirit of the Great Dismal Swamp

For nearly all of its modern existence, the Great Dismal Swamp has been excluded from U.S. history. Now there’s a push to bring its significance to light.
Cleveland-Stevenson Tariff Reform Portrait Handkerchief

Tax Regimes

On Americans’ complicated relationship to taxes, from the colonial period through the Civil War to the tax revolts of the 1980s.
Portraits of African American men revealed under torn copy of the Dred Scott Case.

The Painful, Cutting and Brilliant Letters Black People Wrote To Their Former Enslavers

The letters show a desire for freedom and a desperate longing to be reunited with their families.
Illustration of West Ford with laborers working fields in the background, by John P. Dessereau

Did George Washington Have an Enslaved Son?

West Ford’s descendants want to prove his parentage—and save the freedmen’s village he founded.
Edit of Grammarly language change suggestions

Why Grammarly’s New Language Suggestions Miss the Mark

Slavery’s a sensitive subject, but so is the question of who gets to be an authority about language.
Judah P. Benjamin.

Biographical Fallacy

The life of Judah Benjamin, a Southern Jew who served in the Confederate government, can tell us only so much about the American Jewish encounter with slavery.
Pastoral landscape with classical architecture. Copy after Thomas Cole’s “Dream of Arcadia”, by Robert Seldon Duncanson, 1852.

An Ugly Preeminence

On the devout abolitionists who excoriated American exceptionalism.
Plantation house in the snow.

The Grim History of Christmas for Slaves in the Deep South

"If you read enough sources, you run into cases of slaves spending a lot of time over Christmas crying."
A migrant from Haiti prays with a Bible on her head during a Mass at an improvised refugee shelter in Ciudad Acuña on Sept. 21.
partner

In Its Early Days, the United States Provided Haven to People Fleeing Haiti

Extending that compassion today could reverse past wrongs.

Modern-day Culture Wars are Playing Out on Historic Tours of Slaveholding Plantations

Romanticized notions of Southern gentility are at odds with historical reality as the lives, culture and contributions of the enslaved are becoming integral on tours.
A mural depicting the portrait of Ahmaud Arbery, on the side of a building.
partner

Trial of Arbery's Killers Hinges on Law that Originated in Slavery

Georgia enacted the Citizen's Arrest Law in an attempt to maintain control of enslaved people.
Dual circular images of fire, representing seeing fire through the eye holes of a klan hood

Sins of the Fathers

In Life of a Klansman, Edward Ball’s white supremacist great-great-grandfather becomes a case study in the enduring legacy of slavery.
Painting of British soldiers surrendering their arms to George Washington.

The Yorktown Tragedy: Washington's Slave Roundup

History books remember Yorktown as a "victory for the right of self-determination." But the battle guaranteed slavery for nearly another century.
1836 lithograph of a slave trader marching enslaved people to be sold.

Partners in Brutality

New books investigate the brutality of the internal slave trade by focusing on businesses, and examine the role of white women in enslaving Black people.
Group portrait, "Elihu Yale With Members of His Family and an Enslaved Child," 1719.

Who Is the Enslaved Child in This Portrait of Yale University's Namesake?

Scholars have yet to identify the young boy, but new research offers insights on his age and likely background.
Photo of Jefferson Davis

The Southern Slaveholders Dreamed of a Slaveholding Empire

Antebellum slaveholders weren't content with an economic and social system based on trafficking in human flesh in the South alone.
Joe Biden

How Joe Biden Became Irish

The president has skillfully played up his Irish roots, but the story of his ancestry is more complicated.
Depiction of an agricultural fair with crowds of people gathered around exhibit halls.

Slavery, Technology and the Social Origins of the US Agricultural State

Ariel Ron discusses the rise of the agricultural state in his book, Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slaveholding Republic.
Side profile of Julia Grant

Julia Dent Grant’s Personal Memoirs as a Plantation Narrative

Her memoirs contribute to the inaccurate post-Civil War memory of the Southern plantation.
John Marshall Harlan and Robert James Harlan

The Black Hero Behind One of the Greatest Supreme Court Justices

John Marshall Harlan's relationship with an enslaved man who grew up in his home showed how respect could transcend barriers and point a path to freedom.
The plough, the loom and the anvil book drawing

In the Common Interest

How a grassroots movement of farmers laid the foundation for state intervention in the economy, challenging the slaveholding South.

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person