"This week -- for the first time ever -- a searchable collection of thousands of rare photographs chronicling Europe’s colonization of East Africa becomes available to anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world, thanks to the efforts of staff at Northwestern University Library." (press release)
posted by gman on Jul 1, 2009 - 12 comments

Ta-Nehisi Coates reflects on social myth-making from the losing side.
posted by shothotbot on Jun 17, 2009 - 94 comments

The exceptionally informative and well illustrated Galerie Ezakwantu has great pages on African tribal art, culture and history [due to partial nudity many links NSFW]: African Lip Plugs - Lip Plates; African Currency - African Slave Beads; Jewelry; African Scarification; Thrones and Stools; Shields; Combs; Musical Instruments; Fertility Dolls; Weapons; Zulu Basketry; Contemporary Art; Cups; Tribal Currency; Zulu Ricksha attire; Southern Africa Tribal Migrations; South African Kings and Chiefs. Also some interesting pages on anger about Robert Mugabe; the sale of the gallery owner's property; Cape Dutch Homesteads and blueberry recipes. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on May 17, 2009 - 8 comments

The Uprising Of The Ants: "Alexandra Achenbach and Susanne Foitzik from Ludwig Maximillians Universty in Munich found that some of the kidnapped workers don't bow to the whims of their new queen. Once they have matured, they start killing the pupae of their captors, destroying as many as two-thirds of the colony's brood. "
posted by The Whelk on Apr 2, 2009 - 32 comments

Tibet serf debate shadows China's "emancipation day". Like Juneteeth or Martin Luther King Day, Tibet's Serf Emancipation Day commemorates the freeing of a million serfs in 1959. Much like the descendants of slaveowners mocking Martin Luther King Day, the descendants of Tibet's aristocracy have announced Smurf Emancipation Day.
posted by shetterly on Mar 28, 2009 - 111 comments

If you have eaten a tomato this winter, chances are very good that it was picked by a person who lives in virtual slavery.
posted by Ostara on Mar 20, 2009 - 55 comments

Darwin the abolitionist. "The theory of evolution is regarded as a triumph of disinterested scientific reason. Yet, on the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, new research reveals that Darwin was driven to the idea of common descent by a great moral cause." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Feb 8, 2009 - 24 comments

"The Beydanes, also known as White Moors, are the ruling caste in Mauritania. They are Arab Berber tribesmen whose ancestors established control in the seventeenth century. The Haratin, also known as Black Moors, are the descendants of black West Africans conquered and enslaved by the Beydanes centuries ago." from the New Yorker story, A Slave in New York, about a former slave who escaped in 1978, came to live in America and now works with the American Anti-Slavery Group. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Feb 6, 2009 - 25 comments

Deadly Symbiosis: Rethinking race and imprisonment in twenty-first-century America.
posted by lunit on Jan 29, 2009 - 16 comments

Happy Birthday Dr. King. Today is Martin Luther King Day. He was born 80 years ago, on January 15th, 1929. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just thirty-nine years old. Tomorrow, more than four decades after Dr. King’s death, Barack Obama will take his oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president in US history. The Reverend Joseph Lowery, a civil rights icon who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr, King, will deliver the benediction at the inauguration ceremony. Obama accepted the Democratic party nomination on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, arguably his most famous address. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People"s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic US foreign policy and the Vietnam War. [more inside]
posted by caddis on Jan 19, 2009 - 30 comments

A throwback to slavery? The Azalea Trail Maids began as a celebration of horticulture in Mobile, AL in 1929, and right now they're scrambling to raise funds so they can stroll in Obama's inagural procession. The President of Alabama 's NAACP, however, is determined to see that they stay home.
posted by Julia F***ing Sugarbaker on Jan 13, 2009 - 81 comments

Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database documents the slave trade from Africa to the New World between the 16th and 19th centuries. It provides searchable information on almost 35,000 trans-Atlantic voyages hauling human cargo, as well as maps, images and data on some individual Africans transported." Search for people. Search for voyages. [more inside]
posted by cashman on Dec 19, 2008 - 18 comments

389 years ago...
posted by desjardins on Nov 7, 2008 - 53 comments

We're all anticipating the future right now, but don't forget to remember the past, as well. [more inside]
posted by greenie2600 on Nov 5, 2008 - 9 comments

Tuaregian band, Tinariwen, are members of a nomadic tribe in the Northwest of Africa which still practises slavery.
posted by gman on Nov 1, 2008 - 44 comments

A World Enslaved: There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history.
Restaveks are Haitian child slaves.
To understand more here is a Modern Slavery 101 and a BBC special. Slavery is often hidden as Bonded Labour.
On the positive side in Niger an ex-slave wins a landmark case .
Here is a country by country report.
posted by adamvasco on Oct 29, 2008 - 41 comments

A brief history of chocolate slavery: That Chocolate is an oligopoly might surprise a few people. Chocolate's Bittersweet Economy (pdf) shows that seven years after the industry had agreed to abolish child labour, little progress has been made. Cross-border Migration of Working Children has still been left out of Harkin-Engel Cocoa Protocol Process. Bitter Chocolate Reflects on the politics of cocoa and chocolate. With Halloween approaching you might consider a Fair Trade approach to Trick or Treat. (If Chocolate slavery doesn't make you throw up a little maybe this will.)
posted by adamvasco on Oct 1, 2008 - 26 comments

Reenacting slavery at Chickamauga National Military Park. When a reenactor put his knapsack on the ground, the person portraying his slave picked up his knapsack and "moved it before I could say a word. I instantly knew that I had an opportunity to demonstrate the institution's cruelty here, and so I did not acknowledge his act, did not thank him for it, did not make eye contact, did not stop my talk. My own cruelty -- even to make a teaching point to the audience -- made me shudder inside." [more inside]
posted by marxchivist on Sep 24, 2008 - 34 comments

The Massachusetts Historical Society has a nice collection of Thomas Jefferson's papers online. It includes two catalogs of Jefferson's books, a draft of the Declaration of Independence and his Garden Book. Architectural Drawings too! [more inside]
posted by marxchivist on Aug 22, 2008 - 6 comments

The black backs by and on which the fortunes of the New South were built:

On March 30, 1908, Green Cottenham was arrested by the sheriff of Shelby County, Alabama, and charged with “vagrancy.”... Cottenham’s offense was blackness.... [After a brief trial] Cottenham... was sold. Under a standing arrangement between the county and a vast subsidiary of the industrial titan of the North — U.S. Steel Corporation — the sheriff turned the young man over to the company for the duration of his sentence.... he was chained inside a long wooden barrack at night and required to spend nearly every waking hour digging and loading coal. His required daily “task” was to remove eight tons of coal from the mine. Cottenham was subject to the whip for failure to dig the requisite amount, at risk of physical torture for disobedience, and vulnerable to the sexual predations of other miners.... Forty-five years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freeing American slaves, Green Cottenham and more than a thousand other black men toiled under the lash at Slope 12.

— from the Introduction to Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II. The book's website includes reviews of the book, an excerpt of the Introduction, and an extensive photo gallery that includes disturbing images of enslaved and tortured prisoners. [more inside]
posted by orthogonality on Jun 21, 2008 - 94 comments

This is what happens when you ask a bunch of fifth-graders to write a play about slavery. The teacher claims the only advice he gave them was "Keep working, it isn't good enough." [via] [more inside]
posted by marxchivist on Jun 16, 2008 - 46 comments

The Underground Railroad refers to the effort -- sometimes spontaneous, sometimes highly organized -- to assist persons held in bondage in North America to escape from slavery. Historic places along the Underground Railroad are testament of African American resolve. One of those places is Lycoming County, PA. Freedom means a hard, dangerous trek. Do you try it?
posted by netbros on Jun 15, 2008 - 26 comments

"King Cotton" created a huge demand for land and (slave) labor that changed early America's borders, population, and economics. But just as cotton affected history, history affected cotton: the story of naturally colored cottons -- brown, green, yellow, mauve, and reddish cottons -- has almost been lost. [more inside]
posted by Asparagirl on May 9, 2008 - 16 comments

William Finnegan reports on rescuing the victims of the global sex trade. You can also listen to Finnegan talking about the research for the article. (New Yorker)
posted by fourcheesemac on May 1, 2008 - 11 comments

Slavery in the North is a website covering the 200-year history of slavery in the northern colonies in what would become the United States.
posted by Kattullus on Mar 11, 2008 - 49 comments

Chattel houses were very small houses, built by freed slaves or plantation workers, that could be dismantled quickly and moved in the event they were fired or unable to pay property tax to the plantation owner on whose land the house stood. Examples in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad l Sunday 25 March 2007 marked 200 years to the day that the British Parliament passed an Act to outlaw the slave trade in British colonies. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Mar 9, 2008 - 4 comments

He's probably the first person you'll see if you've ever been to an Indian Train Station. Not as dramatic as has been immortalized on screen, but certainly no less forgettable either. He is one of many who waits for his turn to carry your luggage on his head, or his shoulders, and maybe even around his neck. He has dreams and ambitions too, and just wants to earn a decent enough living. But it can get tedious at times, especially with the odds stacked against him. [more inside]
posted by hadjiboy on Jan 26, 2008 - 14 comments

A collection of unusual maps from Maps: Finding Our Place in the World by James Akerman and Robert Karrow, including slavery maps of the US from the 19th Century, maps of the voyage of the Pequod from Moby Dick and a mappe of Fairyland. All the maps are available in high resolutions with zoom functioning. [via The Edge of the American West]
posted by Kattullus on Dec 27, 2007 - 12 comments

40 acres and a mule has been a slogan of African-American economic aspirations ever since the legislation creating the Freedman's Bureau promised ex-slaves parcels not exceeding forty acres each, to the loyal refugees and freedmen. General William Tecumseh Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 decreed that the land on slave plantations be seized and distributed to freed slaves, but Andrew Johnson rescinded the order and vetoed expansion of the Freedman's Bureau. Both Henry Louis Gates and Dalton Conley have associated the failure to grant freed slaves their "40 acres and a mule" with the wealth gap between black and white Americans, but now an economics grad student, Melinda Miller, has brought important quantitative data to the debate in a new research paper. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 on Dec 14, 2007 - 43 comments

"It will no doubt be deemed a strange circumstance that an African negro should attempt to write a book, and that he should presume to offer his production to the enlightened people of Great Britain."

The Life and Adventures of Zamba, an African Negro King; and His Experience of Slavery in South Carolina. Written by Himself.
posted by borkingchikapa on Dec 11, 2007 - 16 comments

Sold to Be Soldiers: The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma. [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Oct 30, 2007 - 6 comments

When life imitates Simpsons (i.e. skittlebrau), it's generally funny. With the Onion, not so much.
posted by 445supermag on Oct 28, 2007 - 17 comments

In August 1781, the case of Brom and Bett vs. Ashley went to the jury. The year before, Mum Bett, a slave in the Ashley house since 1742, was struck by her mistress. Mum Bett left the house and refused to return. Bett had overheard conversations about the new Massachusetts constitution that included the clause, "All men are created equal" and argued that the clause applied to her. When the jury agreed, slavery was effectively abolished in the state of Massachusetts. Mum Bett took the name of Elizabeth Freeman and went to work in the employ of her lawyer. (More inside)
posted by forrest on Aug 10, 2007 - 34 comments

From Hunter to Hunted "In his quest to free slaves around the world, Aaron Cohen thought he’d seen it all. Then he went to Myanmar."
posted by homunculus on Jul 1, 2007 - 25 comments

China faces slavery and human trafficking.
posted by pwedza on Jun 18, 2007 - 24 comments

Lost Cause [WaPo, bugmenot] History museums are a repository for public memory, but also a nation's mirrors, reflecting self-image. When our views of history shift, museums that fail to change are likely to fail in general. Today's Washington Post reports on the struggle and decline of the Museum of the Confederacy, contrasting it with the American Civil War Center, nearby geographically, worlds away in philosophy.
posted by Miko on Apr 4, 2007 - 18 comments

Construction of the largest embassy on Earth will shortly be completed in Iraq. Roughly the size of Vatican City, and previously estimated to cost nearly 1 billion, (later reduced to a mere 592 million ), this remarkable feat of engineering "...will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewater-treatment facility, 'systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities,' says the report..." .
posted by Avenger on Mar 24, 2007 - 115 comments

Genealogists: Thurmond's family owned Sharpton's kin It seems like a poor joke or a REALLY bad idea for a TV movie but apparently it's quite real. Truth sometimes IS stranger than fiction.
posted by orbis23 on Feb 25, 2007 - 52 comments

Did Anyone Really Follow the Drinking Gourd? Were you taught that slaves in the antebellum South sang this traditional song to convey coded instructions for escaping Northward? Were you taught that quilt block patterns could be read as a map to freedom, or that quilts were hung outside safe houses as signals to escaping slaves?Though these are among the most often taught stories of the operation of the Underground Railroad, current scholarship indicates that these aren't survivals of pre-Civil War African-American folklore, but legends constructed and popularized within the twentieth century, frequently by white writers and performers. In today's New York Times, these legends battle it out with fact in debate over the proposed design of a new Frederick Douglass memorial [PDF].
posted by Miko on Jan 23, 2007 - 42 comments

Compassionate Slavery. A representative of the World Trade Organization proposes foreign corporate "stewardship" of workers in Africa from the moment they are hired until they die, describing it as "the best available solution to African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market theory".
posted by Pastabagel on Nov 14, 2006 - 24 comments

Kira Salak is a writer who embodies an old-fashioned spirit of adventure. She has kayaked the Niger River solo; during her time in Africa, she freed a slave. On another trip, she sampled Ayahuasca in the Peruvian jungle. At the age of 24, she trekked alone through the tribal violence of Papua New Guinea. Her work is a wonderful alternative to the blandness and narrowness of contemporary consumer society, in which there is nothing new to be discovered and everything can be reduced to lucre.
posted by jason's_planet on Oct 17, 2006 - 21 comments

Why is the elephant the symbol of the GOP? In large part, we can thank cartoonist Thomas Nast, who, on November 7 of 1874, published this cartoon, showing Republicans as a rampaging elephant tearing up the flimsy planks of the Democratic Party. He wasn't just a man who made elephants though; considered to be the father of political cartooning, Nast's illustrations helped bring down Boss Tweed, argued for the abolition of slavery, and hated the Irish.
posted by Astro Zombie on Oct 8, 2006 - 20 comments

Paradise Lost: Greed, Sex Slavery, Forced Abortions and Right-Wing Moralists. Saipan is not a pleasant place to live or work.
posted by chunking express on Sep 18, 2006 - 41 comments

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations adopted a bipartisan resolution to ask the Japanese government to formally apologize for sexually enslaving up to 200,000 "comfort women" in Imperial brothels during its colonial occupation of Asia from 1932 through the end of World War II. Many were tortured and raped, and only about 30% survived WWII. Japan has stated repeatedly that even though the brothels were established by military policy, the imperial government was not directly involved in operating them. Taking responsibility would be an admission that they committed war crimes -- slavery and trafficking in women and children -- and could give victims a legal basis to sue for reparations.

H Res. 759 does not ask Japan to provide reparations, but it does push them to unambiguously acknowledge what happened and educate future generations, (full text) rather than continue the current practice of denying what really happened. Previously on MeFi.
posted by zarq on Sep 15, 2006 - 56 comments

I was a slave in Puglia. A long first-person exposé, in English, about immigrant slave labor in Italy, from Fabrizio Gatti writing in the Italian newspaper L'Espresso. "I can hire you. Tomorrow," he promises. "Do you have a girl friend?" "A girlfriend?" "You have to bring me a woman. For the boss. If you bring him one, he'll put you to work right away. Any girl will do." He points to a twenty year-old woman and her companion, working on the conveyor belt of a huge tractor that is being used to gather tomatoes. "Those two are Romanians, just like you. She slept with the boss." "But I'm alone." "No work for you then." Photo galleries. Italian version (includes additional sidebars not found in the English version, including local and government reaction to the exposé and more photo galleries under the sidebar "Reportage Fotografico.")
posted by Mo Nickels on Sep 4, 2006 - 16 comments

" 'How is it,' asked Samuel Johnson, 'that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?' The British author was only one of many Europeans who thought it strange that a nation run by slave owners should be so noisily demanding its own freedom."
posted by j-urb on Jul 4, 2006 - 32 comments

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America. The author did a line by line comparison of the US constitution and the CS constitution. It's no surprise that the constitution of the CSA includes specific clauses regarding slavery, but some of the other changes are quite interesting. For instance, the CSA constitution included a "line item veto" for budget measures.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste on Jun 23, 2006 - 45 comments

Rebellion: John Horse and the Black Seminoles, First Black Rebels to Beat American Slavery. "Rebellion is a Web documentary that explores the inspiring, true, and largely unknown story of John Horse and the Black Seminoles, a community of free blacks and fugitive slaves who in 1838 became the first black rebels to defeat American slavery." This visually arresting site is a treasure trove of information about the Seminoles, early Florida history, and a largely unrecognized (and successful!) slave rebellion that may have been the largest in American history. The site includes interactive maps, arresting images, and a thorough history of the rebellion. Too bad the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma expelled all its black members in 1990.
posted by LarryC on May 31, 2006 - 13 comments

The Public Archives of Nova Scotia has some cool online exhibits. The original list of dead bodies recovered from the Titanic sinking caught my eye, they also have original log book pages from privateers, lighthouses, slavery and abolition, boats, boats, and more boats. [via]
posted by marxchivist on Apr 20, 2006 - 11 comments

Oney Judge slipped away from the household where she was kept as a slave in 1796. Neighbors were probably involved in the escape. Although a fugitive, she managed to live out the rest of her life in safety in New Hampshire. The owners she was escaping from? You may have heard of them.
posted by gimonca on Mar 17, 2006 - 48 comments