Map of the Missouri Compromise, 1820

Missouri Compromise of 1820: Annotated

The “compromise” attempted to answer the question of whether the Missouri territory would be admitted to the Union as a “slave” or “free” state.
James G. Birney

The Power of Pamphlets in the Anti-Slavery Movement

Black-authored print was central to James G. Birney’s conversion from enslaver to abolitionist and presidential candidate.
Depiction of the Battle of Ravine-à-Couleuvres, during the Haitian Revolution, February 1802

The Haitian Revolution and American Slavery

For both US politicians and enslaved Black Americans, the Haitian Revolution represented the possibility of a successful violent rebellion by the oppressed.
A black preacher addressing his mixed congregation on a plantation

When Enslaved Virginians Demanded the Right to Read

In 1723, a group of enslaved African Americans petitioned the Bishop of London to ensure that their children could attend school and learn to read the Bible.
A page from The Angolite that features a photograph of a prison guard holding a shotgun while watching prisoners work in a field.

Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation

"Except as punishment for a crime," reads the constitutional exception to abolition. In prison plantations across the United States, slavery thrives.
leaders of Kongo receiving the Portugeuse, ca. pre-1840

How Portuguese Slave Traders Changed Ethiopia and Congo

Portuguese trading of enslaved Africans affected two major African powers in very different ways.
Prison Work Crew c. 1929

Race, Prison, and the Thirteenth Amendment

Critiques of the Thirteenth Amendment have roots in a long history of activists who understood the imprisonment of Black people as a type of slavery.
Storage jar by Dave the Potter

Dave the Potter’s Mark on History

An enslaved African American in South Carolina did the unthinkable, writing his name on the walls of his vessels—and forever inscribing history.
J. Marion Sims: Gynecologic Surgeon, from "The History of Medicine"

Legacies Lost and Found

Say Anarcha tells the story of the enslaved women experimented on by a self-aggrandizing gynecologist. Its related online archive aims to reinvent the nature of bibliography.
Frederick Douglass

“What to the Slave is The Fourth of July?”: Annotated

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a Fourth of July speech that became his most famous public oration.