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Articles on Plantations

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A Black actor in 1974 impersonating an enslaved man in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. George Bryant/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Why separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching US slavery

Though it is a fact that some enslaved people learned valuable skills, it’s a myth that they had the same path of upward mobility that white laborers enjoyed.
A Malaysian worker harvests palm fruits from a plantation in peninsular Malaysia, on Wednesday, March 6, 2019. Though labour issues have largely been ignored, the punishing effects of palm oil on the environment have been decried for years. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

Palm oil: The myth of corporate plantation efficiency is failing Indonesians and furthering inequality

Palm oil is used in half the products sold in global supermarkets. Much of the oil comes from Indonesia where it is grown on plantations that are relatively inefficient, but occupy huge areas of land.
By reflecting on sugar’s origins, we can trace the pathways that have made this commodity so abundant. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Uncovering the violent history of the Canadian sugar industry

By reflecting on the violent origins of the Canadian sugar industry, we can bring wider attention to the exploitation underpinning the history of Canadian cuisine.
Workers harvesting crops in a Dutch East Indies’ plantation. Leiden University Library/Wikimedia

Mapping inequality in Dutch colonial-era Indonesia

Economic inequality during the Dutch East Indies era varied radically, depending on where you look. What made the income distribution different from one region to another?
Reconstructed slave cabins at James Madison’s Montpelier in Virginia. Stephen P. Hanna

Modern-day struggle at James Madison’s plantation Montpelier to include the descendants’ voices of the enslaved

Once owned by James Madison, the Montpelier plantation remains a model for presenting a full depiction of the life of the former president as well as the lives of those he enslaved.
Mansa Musa, the king of Mali, approached by a Berber on camelback, from The Catalan Atlas, 1375. Attributed to Abraham Cresques/Bibliothèque Nationale de France/Wikimedia Commons

Book review: how Africa was central to the making of the modern world

Born in Blackness by Howard W. French is a towering work. It argues that, because of gold and slavery, Africa is central to creating the modern world.
These statues of enslaved young boys are part of a modern-day depiction of southern plantation life at the Whitney Museum in Louisiana. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Modern-day culture wars are playing out on historic tours of slaveholding plantations

The romanticized notions of Southern gentility are increasingly at odds with historical reality as the lives, culture and contributions of the enslaved are becoming integral on tours of plantations.
An abolitionist lithograph of the slave trade in Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Capitol in the background. Library of Congress

White mobs rioted in Washington in 1848 to defend slaveholders’ rights after 76 Black enslaved people staged an unsuccessful mass escape on a boat

Riots by proslavery forces raged for three days in the nation’s capital after the capture of a ship bearing fugitive enslaved people. The president, a slaveowner himself, tried to calm the city.
BRG could focus on communities to support its peatland restoration efforts in the next term. ANTARA FOTO/Rony Muharrman/aww.

Indonesia’s Peatland Restoration Agency gets an extension despite failing to hit its target: what are the hurdles and next strategies?

Indonesia’s Peatland Restoration Agency is likely to have its tenure extended by four years. What has been achieved and what should the agency focus on for the next term?

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