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An ad for a runaway slave in the Virginia Gazette, describing Thomas Greenwich, an "East-India Indian."
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“Of the East India Breed …”

The first South Asians in British North America.
by Brinda Charry via HNN on May 7, 2023

How We Think About the Term 'Enslaved' Matters

The first Africans who came to America in 1619 were not ‘enslaved’, they were indentured – and this is a crucial difference.
by Nell Irvin Painter via The Guardian on August 14, 2019

America Cannot Bear to Bring Back Indentured Servitude

It’s a history lesson worth remembering: The exploitation of immigrant workers only encourages more—and worse—abuse.
by Ariel Ron, Dael Norwood via The Atlantic on March 28, 2018
Statue memorializing Irish immigrants.

No, the Irish Were Not Slaves Too

The myth of Irish slavery has found fertile ground in Internet memes as a way to derail conversation about the need for affirmative action today.
by Liam Hogan, David M. Perry via Pacific Standard on March 15, 2018
Painting of a young boy working as an apprentice, wearing an apron

How Long Did the School Year Last in Early America?

Even throwing off of a colonial power, representative institutions, Protestantism, and local autonomy in school decisions did not produce an egalitarian system.
by Carole Shammas via Cambridge Core Blog on June 12, 2023

Racecraft and the 1619 Project

Historian Barbara J. Fields explains why you can't understand what happened in 1619 without understanding what happened in 1607.
by Center on Modernity in Transition via YouTube on May 4, 2022
Roadside memorial for Ma’Khia Bryant
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Child Welfare Systems Have Long Harmed Black Children Like Ma’Khia Bryant

Instead of caring for Black children, child welfare systems subject them to abuse and harsh conditions.
by Crystal Webster via Made By History on April 30, 2021
Breakfast Room at Belle Grove Plantation in White Chapel, Louisiana

Troubled Indemnity

A history of the United States shifting the financial burden of emancipation onto enslaved people.
by Nikki Shaner-Bradford via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 21, 2020
Two drawings, one of a woman on the left and one of a man on the right

Minorcans, New Smyrna, and the American Revolution in East Florida

The little-known story of the laborers who became pawns in a Floridian struggle during the American Revolution.
by George Kotlik via Journal of the American Revolution on August 27, 2020
Photograph of a teacher standing in an historic cemetery.

Slavery Existed in Illinois, but Schools Don’t Always Teach That History

An Illinois high school teacher explains how his state complicates the binary of “free states” and “slave states.”
by Logan Jaffe, Darrel Dexter via ProPublica on June 19, 2020

How Jamestown Abandoned a Utopian Vision and Embraced Slavery

In 1619, wealthy investors overthrew the charter that guaranteed land for everyone.
by Paul Musselwhite via Zócalo Public Square on August 15, 2019

The Curious History of Anthony Johnson: From Captive African to Right-Wing Talking Point

Certain pundits are misrepresenting the biography of the "first black slaveholder."
by Tyler D. Parry via Black Perspectives on July 22, 2019

Learning from Jamestown

The violent catastrophe of the Virginia colonists is the best founding parable of American history.
by Brianna Rennix via Current Affairs on March 15, 2019

One Man's Quest to Uncover the True Costs of Jim Crow

"It’s going to change how we think about Texas history and how we think about ourselves and how we built this state."
by Megan Flynn via Washington Post on July 18, 2018

Slavery Myths Debunked

The Irish were slaves too; slaves had it better than factory workvers; black people fought for the Confederacy; and so on.
by Jamelle Bouie, Rebecca Onion via Slate on September 29, 2015
Abstract painting of people embracing.

The Forgotten History of Sex in America

Today’s battles over issues like gender nonconformity and reproductive rights have antecedents that have been lost or suppressed. What can we learn from them?
by Rebecca Mead via The New Yorker on August 26, 2024
Image of Preston Brooks pummeling Charles Sumner with a cane in 1856 and a Trump supporter on January 6th, 2021.

The Illiberalism at America’s Core

A new history argues that illiberalism is not a backlash but a central feature from the founding to today.
by Julian E. Zelizer via The New Republic on May 2, 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
Greenwood District, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Class, Race, and the Formation of Urban Black Communities

A review of three new studies about how race and class intersect.
by Randal Maurice Jelks via The Common Reader on February 21, 2024
Leaders of the 1963 March on Washington posing in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial. August 28, 1963.

How the 1619 Project Distorted History

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.
by James Oakes via Jacobin on December 27, 2023
Farmers working in an orchard.
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The Unlikely Supporters of a Bill That Would Increase Guest Workers

The history of guest worker programs should give pause to supporters of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.
by Matt Garcia via Made By History on December 14, 2022
Black and white photo of the young Mary Ellen next to an empty chair
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Origins of Child Protection

Legend says that the campaign to save abused children in New York was driven by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The truth is more complicated.
by Matthew Wills, Lela B. Costin via JSTOR Daily on November 26, 2022
Harvesting on a Louisiana sugar plantation, 1875; an overseer monitors laborers in the field, while a factory billows smoke in the background.

Making Sugar, Making ‘Coolies’

Chinese laborers toiled alongside Black workers on 19th-century Louisiana plantations.
by Moon-Ho Jung via The Conversation on January 13, 2022
A black and white photo of historian Mae Ngai.

“We’ve Always Had Activists in Our Communities”

May Ngai uses her experiences as an activist in the 1980s and her research on the 19th century Chinese diaspora to debunk stereotypes about Chinese Americans.
by Mae Ngai, Jilene Chua via Public Books on October 13, 2021
Bacon's Rebellion, 1676-1677

Bacon's Rebellion: My Pitch

A drama about an interracial uprising in colonial Virginia.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on June 15, 2021
Wooden cross in the Eli Jackson Methodist Church cemetery in San Juan, Texas.

When Slaves Fled to Mexico

A new book tells the forgotten story of fugitive slaves who found freedom south of the border.
by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on May 13, 2021

On the Insidious ‘Laziness Lie’ at the Heart of the American Myth

Devon Price wonders why we equate sloth with evil.
by Devon Price via Literary Hub on January 6, 2021
A map of Mexico.

When the Enslaved Went South

How Mexico—and the fugitives who went there—helped make freedom possible in America.
by Alice L. Baumgartner via The New Yorker on November 19, 2020

A Motley Crew for our Times?

A conversation with historian Marcus Rediker about multiracial mobs, history from below and the memory of struggle.
by Marcus Rediker, Martina Tazzioli via Radical Philosophy on May 1, 2020

How Christians of Color in Colonial Virginia Became 'Black'

Although the British settlers imported Africans from the first as slaves, the earliest Virginians had yet to establish many basic rules regarding slavery.
by Alejandro de la Fuente, Ariela Gross via Religion News Service on December 13, 2019
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