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Cutouts of Ulysses S. Grant and Julia Dent Grant in front of slave quarters.

Unraveling Ulysses S. Grant's Complex Relationship With Slavery

The Union general directly benefited from the brutal institution before and during the Civil War.
by John Reeves via Smithsonian on December 5, 2023
Five generations of a family pose at the plantation where they were enslaved, soon after Union forces arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, 1863.

More Than 100 U.S. Political Elites Have Family Links to Slavery

Among America's political elite, 5 living presidents, 2 Supreme Court justices, 11 governors, and 100 legislators have ancestors who enslaved Black people.
by Tom Lasseter, Lawrence Delevingne, Makini Brice, Donna Bryson, Nicholas P. Brown, Tom Bergin via Reuters on June 27, 2023
Pierce Butler

The Irish Signatory to the US Constitution Who was Also a Slave-Owner

Other emigrants such as Wolfe Tone did not compromise their principles in unfamiliar environments.
by Finola O'Kane via The Irish Times on January 5, 2023
Two boys looking at the “General George Washington Resigning His Commission" painting in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

Art at Capitol Honors 141 Enslavers and 13 Confederates. Who Are They?

A Washington Post investigation of more than 400 artworks in the U.S. Capitol building found that one-third honor enslavers or Confederates.
by Gillian Brockell via Washington Post on December 27, 2022
Collage of members of Coles family through history.

Their Wealth Was Built On Slavery. Now a New Fortune Lies Underground.

In Virginia, the land still owned by the Coles family could yield billions in uranium. Does any of that wealth belong to the descendants of the enslaved?
by Julie Zauzmer Weil via Retropolis on December 1, 2022
A page of the census documenting the enslaved people of John Hopkins, 1850.

Owner? Yes. Enslaver? Certainly.

Another chance to examine the terms we use and why they matter.
by Martha S. Jones via Hard Histories At Hopkins on July 12, 2022
Kris Manjapra standing outside by a wall. He examines the history of when slavery ended, emancipation laws kept the enslaved in bondage—and rewarded the enslavers.

How Slavery Ended Slowly, and Emancipation Laws Often Kept the Enslaved in Bondage

Tufts Professor Kris Manjapra examines the history of the injustice of abolition in the U.S. and abroad and the need for reparations in his new book.
by Taylor McNeil via TuftsNow on June 15, 2022
INTERIM ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES A map of slavery laws in the United States, from 1775 to 1865.

A Reckoning With How Slavery Ended

A new book examines the ways white slaveholders were compensated, while formerly enslaved people were not.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on April 15, 2022

More Than 1,700 Congressmen Once Enslaved Black People. This is Who They Were.

The Washington Post has compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of census records and historical documents.
by Julie Zauzmer Weil, Adrian Blanco, Leo Dominguez via Washington Post on January 10, 2022
Portrait of Robert Carter III

Like Washington and Jefferson, He Championed Liberty. Unlike the Founders, He Freed his Slaves

The little-known story of Robert Carter III.
by Eliot C. McLaughlin via CNN on September 5, 2021
Artistic photo of John Marshall

America’s ‘Great Chief Justice’ Was an Unrepentant Slaveholder

John Marshall not only owned people; he owned many of them, and aggressively bought them when he could.
by Paul Finkelman via The Atlantic on June 15, 2021

Her Sentimental Properties

White women have trafficked in Black women’s milk.
by Sarah Mesle via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 22, 2020
Portrait of George Washington bathed in light while his enslaved personal servant, William Lee, is behind him in the shadows.

George and Martha Washington Enslaved 300 People. Let’s Start With Their Names

The man who supposedly never told a lie figured out how to stretch the truth when it came to human bondage.
by Michele Norris via Washington Post on June 26, 2020

Tremendous in His Wrath

A review of the most detailed examination yet published of slavery at Mount Vernon.
by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on December 9, 2019

Slavery in the President's Neighborhood

Many people think of the White House as a symbol of democracy, but it also embodies America’s complicated past.
by Lina Mann, Callie Hopkins, Matthew Costello, Louis Keene via White House Historical Association on October 22, 2019

The Mistress's Tools

White women and the economy of slavery.
by Lynne Feeley via The Nation on February 26, 2019

Equal-Opportunity Evil

A new book shows that for female slaveholders, the business of human exploitation was just as profitable as it was for men.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on February 14, 2019

The Myth of Robert E. Lee And The "Good" Slave Owner

According to Lost Cause mythology, Lee was a benevolent slave owner who fought for states’ rights. His slaves said otherwise.
by Glenn David Brasher via The Daily Beast on September 23, 2017
Microphone hovers over a portrait of George Washington.
partner

What Trump — And His Critics — Get Wrong About George Washington and Robert E. Lee

The two men owned slaves — but at vastly different moments in American history.
by Patrick Rael via Made By History on August 23, 2017

Slave Consumption in the Old South: A Double-Edged Sword

Buying goods in the Old South revealed the fragile politics at the heart of master-slave relation.
by Kathleen Hilliard via Process: A Blog for American History on June 12, 2017
U.S. soldiers in the Civil War.

Expanding the Slaveocracy

The international ambitions of the US slaveholding class and the abolitionist movement that brought them down.
by Eric Foner, Matthew Karp via Jacobin on March 21, 2017
Painting of Hannah.

Hannah, Andrew Jackson’s Slave

A favorite of Old Hickory, she made him seem kinder than he was. Why?
by Mark R. Cheathem via Humanities on March 10, 2014
Gaineswood Plantation mansion.

Plantation Tourism Continues to Raise Questions

One plantation tourist manager said covering slavery would be like “trying to tell the story at Disneyland of how poorly the employees at Disney are treated.”
by Sara Rimer, Daniel R. Biddle via Equal Justice Initiative on December 6, 2024
Drawing of George Washington watching over a group of enslaved people working in a field at Mount Vernon.
partner

Even George Washington Was a Tyrant

We don't need to find heroes in our past presidents. We need to try to understand that tyranny has always been part of American freedom.
by Karin Wulf via Made By History on November 18, 2024
Ulysses S. Grant finishing his memoir shortly before he died.

Grant vs. the Klan

New books reconsider how Ulysses S. Grant became a forceful defender of the rights of African Americans after the Civil War.
by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on September 26, 2024
Lithograph of George Washington on his land with people he enslaved.

What, to the American, Is Revolutionary?

The colonial rebellion we celebrate every July 4th doesn’t fit the definition.
by Kellie Carter Jackson via The Emancipator on July 2, 2024
A colorized engraving depicts enslavers selling enslaved people in the 19th-century South.

American Slavery Wasn’t Just a White Man’s Business − Research Shows How White Women Profited, Too

Human bondage was big business in the antebellum US, and men weren’t the only ones cashing in.
by Trevon Logan via The Conversation on June 10, 2024
Election Day in Philadelphia, John Lewis Krimmel.

A More Imperfect Union: How Differing National Visions Divided the North and the South

On the fragile facade of republicanism in 19th century America.
by Alan Taylor via Literary Hub on May 21, 2024
Members of the Mason family, St. Inigoes, Maryland, circa 1890–1909.

How Bondage Built the Church

Swarns’s book about a sale of enslaved people by Jesuit priests to save Georgetown University reminds us that the legacy of slavery is the legacy of resistance.
by Tiya Miles via New York Review of Books on May 2, 2024
Illustration of Nancy and the first edition of the Emancipator.

He Published the First Abolitionist Newspaper in America. He Was Also an Enslaver.

When "The Emancipator" was first published in 1820, its original owner had to answer for why he owned Nancy and her five children.
by Anne G'Fellers-Mason via The Emancipator on April 30, 2024
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