slave trade

More Enslaved Africans Came to the Americas Through this Port than Anywhere Else. Why Have so Few Heard of It?

Despite its recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, efforts to publicly document the history of Rio's Valongo Wharf have run into opposition from the country's right-wing government and those who wish to diminish the significance of slavery in Brazil's history.

Partners in Brutality: New Books on the Domestic Slave Trade

by Nicholas Guyatt

New books investigate the brutality of the internal slave trade by focusing on a single firm, Franklin & Armfield, and examine the role of white women in enslaving Black people.

History Was Never Subject to Democratic Control

by Helen Lewis

Neither the local economic elite who put up Edward Colston's statue in Bristol, England nor the activists who tore it down operated with a public mandate. What are the prospects for democratic and consensual public history? 

The Men Who Turned Slavery Into Big Business

by Joshua D. Rothman

"We still live in the world that Franklin and Armfield’s profits helped build, and with the enduring inequalities that they and their industry entrenched."

A Poisonous Legacy: New York City and the Persistence of the Middle Passage

by Gerald Horne

Historian Gerald Horne reviews John Harris's book on the role of New York merchants in the illegal last phase of the Atlantic slave trade, which persisted despite the law because trade in human beings enriched Americans throughout the nation. 

Salvaging Another Piece of Black history

Diving with a Purpose seeks to locate and document marine evidence of Black history, including the wrecks of ships involved in the slave trade. 

In an English City, an Early Benefactor Is Now ‘a Toxic Brand’

Bristol was built with money from the slave trader Edward Colston. Tearing down his statue has reopened a painful reckoning with the city’s racist past.

Montgomery, Ala., Was a Hub of the Slave Trade and a Center of the Civil Rights Movement. It's About to Swear in Its First Black Mayor

by Olivia B. Waxman

Montgomery, Alabama elects its first African American Mayor.  

Congressional Courage, the D.C. Slave Trade, and Moral Politics in Washington

by Jeff Forret

Political cynics may argue that moral bankruptcy is a long-time fixture in Washington, but at a crucial moment of national division, congressional leadership confronted the ethical embarrassment of the D.C. slave trade and eradicated it.

Asian women fought the West’s slave trade. And then they were written out of history

by Julia Flynn Siler

Asian women opposed slavery in the west. Read their story.

Muslims arrived in America 400 years ago as part of the slave trade and today are vastly diverse

by Saeed Ahmed Khan 

Some of the earliest arrivals to this land were Muslim immigrants.

The story of the slave trade’s last survivor

Zora Neale Hurston’s drive to tell the story.

Beyond the Slave Trade, the Cadaver Trade

by Daina Ramey Berry

For much of the 19th century, when medical schools needed specimens, they relied on the dead bodies of enslaved people.

The U.N. Is Commemorating Haiti’s Role in Ending the Slave Trade. Here’s Why.

by Manisha Sinha

The nation was a beacon for the anti-slavery cause.

Our forgotten slavery horror: The shameful, untold history of America and the Cuban slave trade

by Stephen Chambers

As Cuba opens, it's time to recognize our proxy role in Cuba's slave trade, and the Monroe Doctrine's real purpose

The Horror the Constitution of 1787 Protected Wasn’t Just Slavery. It Was the Domestic Slave Trade.

by Calvin Schermerhorn

Sean Wilentz argues the document was fundamentally anti-slavery. But then there's the slave trade.

The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes

by Andrew Kahn and Jamelle Bouie

Watch the slave ships plow the Atlantic in an ever increasing race from Africa to the Americas.

Is Polygyny a Slave to History?

How the slave trade patterns of centuries ago are still shaping African marriages today

Slate: George W. Bush's ancestor a notorious slave trader

BUNCE ISLAND, Sierra Leone—Twelve American presidents owned slaves, eight while serving in office, and at least 25 presidents count slave owners among their ancestors. But new historical evidence shows that a direct ancestor of George W. and George H.W. Bush was part of a much more appalling group: Thomas Walker was a notorious slave trader active in the late 18th century along the coast of West Africa.Walker, George H.W. Bush's great-great-great grandfather, was the captain of, master of, or investor in at least 11 slaving voyages to West Africa between 1784 and 1792....

It's Time to Face the Whole Truth About the Atlantic Slave Trade

by Sheldon M. Stern

"Readers must understand that this terrible traffic in millions of human beings had been ... a joint venture."