Demerara uprising demands emancipation

Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed Haiti’s independence after years of collective struggle. Formerly enslaved people had defeated attempts to restore French domination. Independence protected...

Haiti adopted a constitution prohibiting slavery and naming its citizens Black. The declaration challenged colonial color divisions and asserted dignity after independence. This political rejection of...

The Slave Trade Act received royal assent after extensive campaigning. It prohibited British participation in the slave trade, but did not free people already enslaved in British colonies....

Enslaved men and women launched a carefully organized rebellion in Barbados. Leaders used plantation networks to coordinate resistance. Although colonial forces defeated the uprising, participants’...

Chile’s government issued an abolition decree, ending legal slavery after earlier gradual measures. The legal outcome must be read alongside enslaved people’s efforts to gain freedom. A subsequent...

Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm began publishing Freedom’s Journal in New York. The newspaper countered hostile representations and enabled Black writers to speak for themselves. Independent...

President Vicente Guerrero abolished slavery in the republic. The decree helped dismantle an institution inherited from colonial rule. Guerrero’s African ancestry also challenges histories that...

President Andrew Jackson signed legislation authorizing negotiated removal of Indigenous nations to lands west of the Mississippi. In practice, pressure and coercion made removal devastating. The...

The Liberator began publication in Boston and demanded an immediate end to slavery. Black readers and supporters helped sustain the newspaper. Print campaigning connected local organizing with a wider...

Nat Turner and companions began an armed uprising in Southampton County. They killed white residents, and white reprisals killed many Black people. Authorities then imposed further restrictions. The...