Tula leads an uprising against slavery in Curaçao

Benjamin Banneker sent Thomas Jefferson his almanac and a letter challenging slavery and racial prejudice. A Black mathematician and astronomer used his own work to confront claims of intellectual...

A mass uprising began in northern Saint-Domingue during the night of 22–23 August. Enslaved Africans and their descendants attacked the plantation order. Their collective struggle transformed an...

A French law extended equal political rights to free men of color in the colonies. Their struggle against discriminatory status helped force the change. However, the law excluded enslaved people...

Civil commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax proclaimed emancipation in the northern province amid warfare and enslaved people’s resistance. Freedom came with labor obligations. The measure was a major...

France’s National Convention abolished slavery in its colonies after revolution in Saint-Domingue had already forced emancipation onto the agenda. Black political representatives and insurgents were...

Tula and other leaders were executed after the uprising was suppressed. Extreme punishment aimed to deter further collective resistance. Remembering their demands centers enslaved people’s struggle...

Ona Judge left the Philadelphia household of George and Martha Washington to seek freedom. Her escape challenged the power of even the republic’s most prominent family to own people. Self-emancipation...

Revolutionary manifestos appeared in Salvador during the Bahia Conspiracy. Participants included working people and people of African descent, with demands for liberty and an end to discriminatory...

Colonial authorities publicly executed four men involved in the Bahia Conspiracy. The punishment targeted a movement remembered for popular participation and challenges to racial inequality. Their...

Absalom Jones and other free Black petitioners asked Congress to end the international slave trade, move toward emancipation, and protect free people from kidnapping. Their demands connected slavery...