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Enslaved men gathered in the woods to plot a revolt.

Slavery and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century New Jersey

While documented revolts of enslaved persons in New Jersey aren’t abundant, some examples speak to the spirit of resistance among African people held captive.
Sketches of animal bones superimposed on a map of rivers in the midwest.

The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People

Decades before paleontology’s formal establishment, Black and Native Americans discovered—and correctly identified—millennia-old fossils.
Map of John Proctor's 15 acres of property in Ipswich, MA

"The Crucible" and John and Elizabeth Proctor of Salem

It is worth digging a bit deeper into the family matters between John and Elizabeth.
John Winthrop.

When Perry Miller Invented America

In a covenantal nation like the United States, words are the very ligaments that hold the body together, and what words we choose become everything.
Yellow house where George Washington stayed while in Barbados.

George Washington in Barbados?

How the Caribbean colony contributed to America's fight for independence.
The historic campus of the College of William & Mary, drawn ca. 1740 by John Bartram.

William & Mary's Nottoway Quarter: The Political Economy of Institutional Slavery and Settler Colonialism

The school was funded by colonial taxation of tobacco grown by forced labor on colonized Indian lands.
An illustration of Puritans in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The Witches of Springfield

Before Salem, this small town succumbed to the witch-hunting fever.
A lithograph depicting the burning of copies of William Pynchon’s 'The Meritous Price of Our Redemption' by early colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who saw his book as heresy.

He Wasn’t Like the Other New England “Witches.” His Story Explains a Lot.

The little-told tale of the 1651 trial of Hugh and Mary Parsons.
Smallpox vaccine vial and syringe.

Never Forget That Early Vaccines Came From Testing on Enslaved People

The practice of vaccination in the U.S. cannot be divorced from the history of slavery.
Sesationalized painting of Native Americans about to scalp a white woman. The Murder of Jane McCrae by John Vanderlyn, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut

“White People,” Victimhood, and the Birth of the United States

White racial victimhood was a primary source of power for settlers who served as shock troops for the nation.
Lithograph depicting Margert Garner standing over the body of her dead daughter, to the shock of slave catchers.
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Discarding Legal Precedent to Control Women's Reproductive Rights is Rooted in Colonial Slavery

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made reference to the legal opinions of English jurist Henry de Bracton, foreshadowing the court overturning Roe v. Wade.
Tilted, weathered headstone near a fallen tree in Copp's Hill Burying Ground.

The Forgotten Legacy of Boston’s Historic Black Graveyard

At one of Boston’s historical burial grounds, more than 1,000 Black Bostonians were laid to rest in unmarked graves. Their legacy continues to haunt us today.
An image of red slave shackles.

Tracing the Ancestry of the Earliest Enslaved Ndongo People

A story born in blood.
Diorama of the founding of Los Angeles, with mannequins of settlers of different ethnicities.

North from Mexico

The first black settlers in the U.S. West.
Painting by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, "Africa: A European Merchant Bartering with a Black Chief"

Inventing the Science of Race

In 1741, Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences held an essay contest searching for the origin of “blackness.” The results help us see how Enlightenment thinkers justified slavery.
Painting of the first Thanksgiving

The First Thanksgiving is a Key Chapter in America's Origin Story

What happened in Virginia four months later mattered much more.
Mashpee Wampanoag woman puts away traditional clothing in a wetu (wood-framed building).

This Tribe Helped the Pilgrims Survive for Their First Thanksgiving. They Still Regret It.

Long marginalized and misrepresented in U.S. history, the Wampanoags are bracing for the 400th anniversary of the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving in 1621.
Black and white photo of construction workers, high up in a building, looking down over industrialized NYC.

The History of the United States as the History of Capitalism

What gets lost when we view the American past as primarily a story about capitalism? 
Drawing of the Pawpaw fruit (green)
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Plant of the Month: The Pawpaw

The pawpaw is finding champions again after colonizers' dismissal, increasing globalization and economic needs.
Join or Die woodcut of a chopped up rattlesnake representing un-unified colonies.
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The Serpents of Liberty

From the colonial period to the end of the US Civil War, the rattlesnake sssssssymbolized everything from evil to unity and power.
Political cartoon of a man being taken away from his family.
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The Role of Naval Impressment in the American Revolution

Maritime workers who were basically kidnapped into the British Royal Navy were a key force in the War of Independence.
Bacon's Rebellion, 1676-1677

Bacon's Rebellion: My Pitch

A drama about an interracial uprising in colonial Virginia.
Arabian silver coin from Yemen in 1693, found in Rhode Island

Arabian Coins Found in U.S. May Unlock 17th-Century Pirate Mystery

The discovery may explain the escape of Captain Henry Every after his murderous raid on an Indian emperor’s ship.
Map of Massachusetts colonial frontier

The “Indianized” Landscape of Massachusetts

In Massachusetts, the inclusion of Native American names and places in local geography has obscured the violence of political and territorial dispossession.
"Join or Die" snake political cartoon.

The Iron Cage of Erasure: American Indian Sovereignty in Jill Lepore’s 'These Truths'

Lepore’s framework insists that the “self-evident” truths of the nation’s founding were anything but.
Lithograph of mansion, Stratford Hall, in Westmoreland County, VA

Oppression in the Kitchen, Delight in the Dining Room

The story of Caesar, an enslaved chef and chocolatier in colonial Virginia.
An illustration of people digging in an archaeological site in the shape of a cross.

Unearthing the Faithful Foundations of a Historic Black Church

In Colonial Williamsburg, a neglected Christian past is being restored.
Painting of “Polling Day” in Pennsylvania in the Colonies, date unknown.

“They Chase Specters”

The irrational, the political, and fear of elections in colonial Pennsylvania.
A gravestone.

Cicely Was Young, Black and Enslaved – Her Death Has Lessons That Resonate in Today's Pandemic

US monuments and memorials have overlooked frontline workers and people of color affected by past epidemics. Will we repeat history?

Taverns and the Complicated Birth of Early American Civil Society

Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America, embodying both its tumult and its promise.

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