slavery myths — Bunk History

A colorized engraving depicts enslavers selling enslaved people in the 19th-century South.

American Slavery Wasn’t Just a White Man’s Business − Research Shows How White Women Profited, Too

Human bondage was big business in the antebellum US, and men weren’t the only ones cashing in.

by Trevon Logan via The Conversation on June 10, 2024

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."

by Olivia B. Waxman, Robert E. May via TIME on December 21, 2021

Julia Dent Grant’s Personal Memoirs as a Plantation Narrative

Her memoirs contribute to the inaccurate post-Civil War memory of the Southern plantation.

by Nick Sacco via Muster on July 20, 2021

The word slavery in a dictionary crossed out

We Found the Textbooks of Senators Who Oppose The 1619 Project and Suddenly Everything Makes Sense

To our surprise, most received a well-rounded education on the history of Black people in America. Just kidding.

by Michael Harriot via The Root on May 6, 2021

A history textbook open to a chapter called "How the Negroes Lived Under Slavery," with an illustration of a wealthy white man shaking the hand of a smiling enslaved African American man whose well-dressed family looks on while white laborers work.

The Lies Our Textbooks Told My Generation of Virginians About Slavery

State leaders went to great lengths to instill their gauzy version of the Lost Cause in young minds.

by Bennett Minton via Washington Post on July 31, 2020

Five Myths About Slavery

No, the Civil War didn’t end slavery, and the first Africans didn’t arrive in America in 1619.

by Daina Ramey Berry, Talitha L. LeFlouria via Washington Post on February 7, 2020

How Right-Wing Talking Points Distort the History of Slavery

As we debate reparations, we need to get the facts right.

by Tyler D. Parry via Made By History on June 25, 2019

Kanye’s Brand of “Freethinking” Has a Long, Awful History

His condemnation of enslaved people’s failure to rebel is drawn from a dangerous ideology that’s older than the United States.

by Rebecca Onion via Slate on May 2, 2018

The Pernicious Myth of the ‘Loyal Slave’ Lives on in Confederate Memorials

Statues don’t need to venerate military leaders of the Civil War to promulgate false narratives.

by Kevin M. Levin via Smithsonian on August 17, 2017

The Echoes of America's 'Faithful Slave' Trope in Lola's Story

How Alex Tizon’s essay echoes a trope with deep roots in American history

by Micki McElya via The Atlantic on May 31, 2017

What Bill O’Reilly Doesn’t Understand About Slavery

The kindness of masters is meaningless in the context of a hereditary chattel system that turned humans into property.

by Rebecca Onion via Slate on July 28, 2016

Slavery Myths Debunked

The Irish were slaves too; slaves had it better than factory workvers; black people fought for the Confederacy; and so on.

by Jamelle Bouie, Rebecca Onion via Slate on September 29, 2015

An artistic collage juxtiposing a transatlantic slave ship with a tenement in Harlem.

How the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Continues to Impact Modern Life

A new Smithsonian book reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism.

by Jennifer L. Morgan via Smithsonian on November 7, 2024

Mildred Rutherford’s War

The “historian general” of the United Daughters of the Confederacy began the battle over the depiction of the South in history textbooks that continues today.

by Adam Hochschild via New York Review of Books on November 16, 2023

Freedpeople sit at Foller’s House in Cumberland Landing, Va., 1862.

If “Woke” Dies, Our Nation’s Truths Die with It

Ron DeSantis wants to retrofit history to conform to conservative ideology.

by Tera W. Hunter via Hammer & Hope on August 30, 2023

The John Rankin House, an original stop on the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad Was the Ultimate Conspiracy to Southern Enslavers

And justified the most extreme responses.

by Colin Dickey via Atlas Obscura on July 11, 2023

Fisk University Class of 1888.

The South: The Past, Historicity, and Black American History (Part II)

Exploring recent debates about the uses–and utility–of Black history in both the academic and public spheres.

by Adolph Reed Jr. via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on April 10, 2023

Ron Desantis, his face partially covered by books, with soft gold lighting on his face and the book spines

The Forgotten Ron DeSantis Book

The Florida governor’s long-ignored 2011 work, "Dreams From Our Founding Fathers," reveals a distinct vision of American history.

by David Waldstreicher via The Atlantic on February 22, 2023

Image of Black Seminoles Plenty Payne, Billy July, Ben July, Dembo Factor, Ben Wilson, John July, William Shields.

The Life of Louis Fatio: American Slavery and Indigenous Sovereignty

Louis Fatio seized an opportunity to recount his version of his life—a story that had been distorted and used by white Americans for various political purposes.

by Caroline Wood Newhall via Black Perspectives on January 31, 2023

Black-and-white photograph of black students sitting in a classroom at the Tuskegee Institute.

The Complicity of the Textbooks

A new book traces how the writing of American history, from Reconstruction on, has falsified and illuminated our racial past.

by Eric Foner via New York Review of Books on September 5, 2022

Drawing of fighting at the Alamo with large portions of the image blacked out and hidden.

What The 1836 Project Leaves Out in Its Version of Texas History

The legislature established a committee last year to “promote patriotic education.” Drafts of one of its pamphlets reveal an effort to sanitize history.

by Michael Phillips, Leah LaGrone via Texas Monthly on August 25, 2022

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

Postcard of The Rex Float at Mardi Gras Carnival, New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Strange Career of Beautiful Crescent

How an old textbook lodged itself in the heart of New Orleans’ self-mythology.

by Jordan Hirsch via Slate on April 18, 2022

Illustrations from Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup, 1853, depicting an African American man hugging his family.

A Dark Cloud over Enjoyment

Refusing myths of joy and pain in slave narratives.

by Erin Austin Dwyer via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 7, 2021

Jennifer L. Morgan portrayed beside her book

Black Feminist in Public: Jennifer L. Morgan Reckons with Slavery

On the intersectionality of enslaved women and common misunderstandings about slavery.

by Janell Hobson, Jennifer L. Morgan via Ms. Magazine on June 17, 2021

Why Confederate Lies Live On

For some Americans, history isn’t the story of what actually happened; it’s the story they want to believe.

by Clint Smith via The Atlantic on May 10, 2021

Estebanico

Black America’s Neglected Origin Stories

The history of Blackness on this continent is longer and more varied than the version I was taught in school.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via The Atlantic on May 4, 2021

Original bars on a window are seen in the basement of the Freedom House Museum in Alexandria, Va.

The Deep Cruelty of U.S. Traders of Enslaved People Didn’t Bother Most Americans

Debunking the myths of the domestic slave trade.

by Joshua D. Rothman via Made By History on April 14, 2021

engraving of Harriet Beecher Stowe

A Forgotten 19th-Century Story Can Help Us Navigate Today’s Political Fractures

Reconciliation is good — but not at any cost.

by Ellen Gruber Garvey via Made By History on March 23, 2021

Performers in "Black America" posing in their costumes

Black America, 1895

The bizarre and complex history of Black America, a theatrical production which revealed the conflicting possibilities of self-expression in a racist society.

by Dorothy Berry via The Public Domain Review on February 24, 2021

brought to you by

© Bunk History