Donate

African slave trade

São Sebastião Fort and Museum with statues of conquistadors São Tomé.

‘Born in Blackness’: A new book centers Africa in the expansive history of slavery

History

Major aspects of the trans-Atlantic slave trade from an African perspective have gotten erased throughout time. Howard French set out to illuminate a more expansive understanding in a new book called, “Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War.”

Tronco, or multiple foot stocks used to to constrain enslaved people

The Netherlands hosts a new slavery exhibit, as historical debates continue 

History
In this Sept. 1, 2016 file photo, a Jesuit statue is seen in front of Freedom Hall, formerly named Mulledy Hall, on the Georgetown University campus in Washington. 

‘Our goal is to heal’: Jesuits and descendants of the enslaved reflect on landmark agreement

Justice
Former mayor of London Boris Johnson, right, is seen by a maquette of a statue that stands as a permanent slavery memorial statue at City Hall in London, Aug. 18, 2008.

Lloyd’s of London examines its ties to the trans-Atlantic slave trade 

History
An older man is shown looking off and wearing a traditional wrap along with several bracelets and a watch.

Retracing a slave route in Ghana, 400 years later

boy

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

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

castle

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

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

A black woman stands with a staff.

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

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.

A couple is backlit against a stark stone fort interior.

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

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.

The World

A culinary journey from Africa to America

Arts, Culture & Media

It’s through food memories and techniques that Africans transformed the way Americans eat. Food historian Jessica Harris explores this part of the American story in her new book ‘High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America.’