400 years: Slavery’s unresolved history

Ghana’s ‘Year of Return’ is emotional for descendents on both sides of the slave trade

August 23, 2019

As two groups of people separated generations ago are reunited, they’re also confronting their differences.

Retracing a slave route in Ghana, 400 years later

August 22, 2019

Aug. 25 marks 400 years since the first recorded enslaved Africans arrived in North America to work plantations in English colonies. In the centuries after, European slave traders shipped millions of African men, women and children across the Atlantic Ocean. This photo essay retraces some of the final steps Ghanaians would have taken in their homeland.

'Willful amnesia': How Africans forgot — and remembered — their role in the slave trade

The World

August 20, 2019

Ghana’s “Year of Return” is changing how the history of the slave trade is remembered in Africa.

Slavers in the family: What a castle in Accra reveals about Ghana's history

The Conversation

August 19, 2019

When Rachel Engmann visited Christiansborg Castle, she noted a water cistern in the courtyard inscribed with the name “Carl Gustav Engmann.” She sought to find out more.

A professor with Ghanaian roots unearths a slave castle’s history — and her own

The World

August 19, 2019

Rachel Engmann, a professor at Hampshire College, found her surname in a slave castle in Accra, Ghana, and decided to do some digging.

Resistance and collaboration: Asameni and the keys to Christiansborg Castle in Accra

The Conversation

August 16, 2019

The story of how Christiansborg Castle’s keys come to be at the Bogyawe Palace is an intriguing one.

Brazil’s first transgender Afro Brazilian lawmaker says she’s a 'rebuke' to the country’s history

The World

July 18, 2019

In countries where right-wing leaders have come to power, like Brazil, many new young, diverse leaders are choosing to run for office. São Paulo has elected the country’s first transgender Afro Brazilian lawmaker.

Archivists race to digitize slavery records before the history is lost

The World

April 04, 2019

The era of the trans-Atlantic slavery is documented in archives in former colonies around the world. Now, just as there’s the most potential to use those documents to fill in large gaps in history, some of those archives are at risk of being lost.

Amid 1619 anniversary, Virginia grapples with history of slavery in America

The World

January 17, 2019

As Virginia marks 400 years since the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colonies, it confronts the problem of silenced voices in history.

Pirates brought enslaved Africans to Virginia’s shores. Where, exactly, is debatable.

The World

January 16, 2019

This year marks 400 years since the first Africans were taken from Africa and sold as slaves in the English colonies. It was the largest migration in history: 12 million or more Africans forcibly moved to places across the Atlantic Ocean to be slaves. Today, all of those places are still dealing with the fallout.