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Lady Liberty bust in a park.

The Entwined History of Freedom and Racism

Liberty for some has always entailed a lack of liberty for many others.
Detail of Anti-Slavery Picnic at Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts (c1845) by Susan Torrey Merritt. Courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago

New England Kept Slavery, But Not Its Profits, At a Distance

Entangled with, yet critical of, colonial oppression and the evils of slavery, the true history of Boston can now be told.
Le Marron Incconu, a statue of an enslaved man with a conch shell, dedicated to the abolishment of slavery.

Slave Rebellions and Mutinies Shaped the Age of Revolution

Several recent books offer a more complete, bottom-up picture of the role sailors and Black political actors played in making the Atlantic world.
Original bars on a window are seen in the basement of the Freedom House Museum in Alexandria, Va.
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The Deep Cruelty of U.S. Traders of Enslaved People Didn’t Bother Most Americans

Debunking the myths of the domestic slave trade.
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.
Silhouette with pieces of constitutions and other prints inside

When Constitutions Took Over the World

Was this new age spurred by the ideals of the Enlightenment or by the imperatives of global warfare?
Tyler Stovall and his book

The History of Freedom Is a History of Whiteness

A conversation about whether or not the legacy of liberty can break away from racial exclusion and domination.
painting of a monkey smoking a pipe

Our Strange Addiction

The transformation of tobacco and cannabis into early modern global obsessions.
Richard Allen (above) and Absalom Jones' "A Refutation". book cover

How the Politics of Race Played Out During the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic

Free blacks cared for those infected with yellow fever even as their own lives were imperiled.
The ship, Jose Gaspar, in Tampa Bay during the Gasparilla Festival

The True History and Swashbuckling Myth Behind the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Namesake

Pirates did roam the Gulf Coast, but more myths than facts have inspired the regional folklore.
Depiction of a woman in a tree, looking down with a thoughtful expression.

Roots to Fruits

Meditations on when you think you found the people who owned your people via DNA test.

Sea Shanties and the Whale Oil Myth

Oil companies like to point to the demise of the whaling industry as an example of market-based energy solutions. The reality is much more complicated.
An illustration of Black men pulling a platform covered in trash and American symbols.

What Price Wholeness?

A new proposal for reparations for slavery raises three critical questions: How much does America owe? Where will the money come from? And who gets paid?
Drawing of people picking cotton at a plantation

A Few Random Thoughts on Capitalism and Slavery

Historian James Oakes offers a critique of the New History of Capitalism.
A map of the origins of illnesses across the world.

The Name Blame Game

A history of inflammatory illness epithets.
Phillis Wheatley

How Phillis Wheatley Was Recovered Through History

For decades, a white woman’s memoir shaped our understanding of America’s first Black poet. Does a new book change the story?
Lithograph of a Black man appealing to liberty and justice.

Dreams of a Revolution Deferred

How African-Americans in Early America celebrated the Declaration of Independence's ideals, even as basic freedoms were denied to them.

A Motley Crew for our Times?

A conversation with historian Marcus Rediker about multiracial mobs, history from below and the memory of struggle.

I Am a Descendant of James Madison and His Slave

My whole life, my mother told me, ‘Always remember — you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president.’

The Shortages May Be Worse Than the Disease

Over the centuries, societies have shown a long history of making the effects of epidemics worse and furthering their own destruction.
Tourists pose for pictures at the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana.
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How a Black Female Fashion Designer Laid the Groundwork for Ghana’s ‘Year of Return’

When Ghana gained independence, Freddye Henderson facilitated African American tourism to the new nation.
A circa 1830 illustration of a slave auction in America. Rischgitz/Hulton Archive—Getty Images.

'The Slaves Dread New Year's Day the Worst': The Grim History of January 1

New Year's Day used to be widely known as "Hiring Day" or "Heartbreak Day"

GMU to Erect Memorial Honoring More Than 100 People Enslaved by George Mason

The structure will span 300 feet and is expected to be unveiled on the Fairfax City campus in 2021.
Illustration of white Quakers with enslaved Africans in the background.

Slavery in the Quaker World

Christian slavery and white supremacy.

The Hopefulness and Hopelessness of 1619

Marking the 400-year African American struggle to survive and to be free of racism.

How Jamestown Abandoned a Utopian Vision and Embraced Slavery

In 1619, wealthy investors overthrew the charter that guaranteed land for everyone.
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Freedom's Fortress

Exploring Virginia’s Fort Monroe – the place where slavery began in British North America, and where, during the Civil War, it began to unravel.

Beyond the Middle Passage

Intra-American trafficking magnified slavery’s impact.

America’s First Female Mapmaker

Through Emma Williard's imagination, a collection of rare maps that illustrates past reality.

The Role of Water in African American History

Have historians privileged land-based models and ignored how African Americans participated in aquatic activities?

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