Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Black Lives
As historians continue to interrogate slavery’s lasting reverberations, narratives produced by slaves themselves have become a kind of ...
John Brown: Feared Fanatic or Freedom Fighter?
Murderous terrorist fanatic or freedom fighter? No figure in American history raises that question more than John Brown.
Our Long Roanoke Nightmare
The sixth season of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story focuses on the mysterious lost colony of Roanoke.
Slavery and the Church
It wasn't just educational institutions like Georgetown University that profited off of slavery; churches, too, were complicit in the system.
The Obscured History of Jamaica’s Maroon Societies
Maroon societies in Jamaica and the rest of the Americas have survived for hundreds of years.
The Mystery Man in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Life
Gilbert Imlay already had a bad reputation before his biographer discovered he was a slave trader.
Are We Entering a New Golden Age of Guano?
A history of civilization could be written in fertilizers. And the history of guano—bird poop—tells us a lot about slavery, imperialism, and U.S. expansion.
![Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, The New York Public Library. "Sugar cane plantation; [Jamaica.]" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 27, 2016. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-94a7-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99](https://daily.jstor.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Sugar_1050x700-600x400.jpg)
Sugar Has Always Been Bad
Sugar long had a bad reputation because of its connection to slavery in the New World.
A Formerly Enslaved Woman Successfully Won a Case for Reparations in 1783
In one of the earliest examples of reparations, an ex-slave named Belinda petitioned the government and was granted an annuity.
Jackpot: For Colonial Slaves, Playing the Lottery Was a Chance at Freedom
Complaints that the lottery is a regressive tax on the poor have been around since the beginning of the lottery in America.