The 1802 Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot was part of Napoléon’s effort to retake Haiti − then known as Saint-Domingue − and reestablish slavery in the colony.
Wikimedia Commons
Leaving out the history of Napoléon’s brutal subjugation of Haiti is akin to making a movie about Hitler without mentioning the Holocaust.
The Slave Ship, by William Turner (1840): slavers throw overboard the dead and dying as a typhoon approaches.
Wikimedia
A new archival study uncovers details about Lloyds of London’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. Whether historical or political, reparatory justice relies on such historical evidence.
Slavery ‘regrettable’, says Richard Drax, the biggest landowner in the UK parliament.
Graham Hunt/Alamy Live News
Some UK families whose wealth largely derives from the transatlantic slave trade have agreed to pay reparations.
Jamaican hero: a statue to Sam Sharpe, who led the Baptist War slave rebellion in 1831.
Debbie Ann Powell/Shutterstock
Britain’s industrial revolution was built on slavery: both black labour and intellectual property.
Enslaved Africans built landmarks like the White House, the U.S. Capitol and New York’s Wall Street.
Bettmann via Getty Images
While a Florida curriculum implies that enslaved Africans ‘benefited’ from skills acquired through slavery, history shows they brought knowledge and skills to the US that predate their captivity.
Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone and haven for thousands of free slaves.
Original Artwork: Hatch Collection. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Africans should get more credit for the abolition of the slave trade.
By reflecting on sugar’s origins, we can trace the pathways that have made this commodity so abundant.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
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.
Siddi children performing Dance Dhamaal in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India.
Courtesy Sayan Dey
Dhamaal music and dance reveals a rich and complex mixing of cultures that is shaped by history.
A lifesize replica of a slave ship graces Project Marina.
Screenshot/YouTube/Presidency of Benin
A grand new memorial park walks a fine line - between teaching about slavery and becoming a tourist trap.
Ilze Kitshoff/Sony Pictures Entertainment/Tiff
This movie is absolutely worth seeing. But it’s best viewed with the awareness of its significant alterations of history.
A publicity still from The Woman King, about the “amazons” of Dahomey.
Image courtesy Ilze Kitshoff/Sony Pictures Entertainment/Tiff
From Lovecraft Country to Black Panther to a statue in Benin, the “amazons” of Dahomey continue to trend in global popular culture.
A Texas law says slavery cannot be taught as part of the ‘true founding’ of the United States.
Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images
Lawmakers are seeking to downplay the role that slavery played in the development of the United States, but history tells a different story.
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
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.
The Gidan Makama national museum in Kano, Nigeria.
Aminu Abubakar/AFP/Getty
Nigerian museums continue to present colonised versions of history. This harms local communities.
Roman burial shackles found on the skeleton in Great Casterton.
MOLA
The Atlantic slave trade isn’t Britain’s first brush with forced labour.
Protesters push Edward Colston statue into Bristol harbour during 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
PA Images/Alamy
The question of what should happen to symbols of oppression has re-emerged a hot-button issue now that the graffiti-covered figure has moved to Bristol’s M Shed museum
Mural by Gabriel Marques, Dublin.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
It took black folk unimaginable resources of creativity, humanity, humour and generosity to detoxify the N-word for their own collective sanity.
Students at Georgetown University protest in 2019, demanding the school make amends for its history with reparations.
Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Are reparations for slavery enough for colleges to make amends? A scholar argues that access and student loan debt must also be addressed.
No guessing who in this 1864 depiction may have been compensated after slavery ended.
API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
History is full of examples of nations paying out to compensate for slavery. But the money never went to those who suffered under the system, only those who profited.
Tourists pose for pictures at the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana.
NATALIJA GORMALOVA/AFP via Getty Images
In a rare series of interviews, the late Ghanaian leader spoke of how the country’s slave trade was revisited as a vehicle for economic development.