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Articles on Slavery

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Catarina was revered in Puebla, Mexico – but devotion to her attracted Catholic authorities’ disapproval after her death. Image from the collections of the Biblioteca Nacional de España

From South Asia to Mexico, from slave to spiritual icon, this woman’s life is a snapshot of Spain’s colonization – and the Pacific slave trade history that books often leave out

Accounts of Asian American history often stop at the US border, but Asians were living in Latin America for centuries before the Declaration of Independence.
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

The Napoléon that Ridley Scott and Hollywood won’t let you see

Leaving out the history of Napoléon’s brutal subjugation of Haiti is akin to making a movie about Hitler without mentioning the Holocaust.
Sinclair Daniel plays Nella in ‘The Other Black Girl’, a horror-satire about the dangers of Black women’s hair care products — something this week’s podcast guest knows a lot about. (Wilfred Harwood/Hulu)

Detangling the roots and health risks of hair relaxers

In this episode, Cheryl Thompson, author of ‘Beauty in a Box,’ untangles the roots of hair relaxers for Black women and discusses their potential health dangers and resulting hundreds of lawsuits.
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat from Missouri, after participating in an abortion rights sit-in on July 19, 2022, in Washington. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

White men have controlled women’s reproductive rights throughout American history – the post-Dobbs era is no different

In the US, white men have long had the power to make decisions about women’s reproductive health care. Those decisions have often been especially harmful to Black women.
Demonstrators hold Confederate flags near the monument for Confederacy President Jefferson Davis on June 25, 2015, in Richmond, Va., after it was spray-painted with the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter.’ AP Photo/Steve Helber

When Confederate-glorifying monuments went up in the South, voting in Black areas went down

The drive to remove Confederate monuments links those monuments to modern racism. An economic historian shows that the intent and effect of those monuments from inception was to perpetuate racism.
Forced and child labor has been reported in mines in the Congo, which produces over 70% of the world’s cobalt. Junior Kannah/AFP via Getty Images

Many global corporations will soon have to police up and down their supply chains as EU human rights ‘due diligence’ law nears enactment

A new EU law would require thousands of multinational companies, including many based in the US, to look for signs of human rights abuses in their supply chains.
A relief depicting a row of captives, carved into the Sun Temple at Abu Simbel in Egypt. Richard Maschmeyer/ Design Pics via Getty Images

Dismantling the myth that ancient slavery ‘wasn’t that bad’

There was no one type of slavery in ‘biblical’ or ‘ancient’ societies, given how varied they were. But much of what historians know about slavery during those eras is horrific.
Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Leschenault aboard the Géographe. Pencil on paper. Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Le Havre, inv. 13033.

French botanist Théodore Leschenault travelled to Australia in 1800-1803. His recently recovered journal contains a wealth of intriguing information

Two previously unknown chapters of a 19th century French botanist’s journal offer insights into his fears and ambitions, scientific observations, and discussions of the effects of colonisation.

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