Christiana community resists slave catchers

A British assault on the pā at Ōhaeawai suffered severe losses. Defenders’ fortifications were designed to withstand artillery and expose attackers. The outcome challenges colonial claims of...

British and allied Māori forces entered Ruapekapeka after a siege; fighting continued outside the pā. The war ended without a straightforward destruction of Ngāpuhi authority. Its sophisticated...

After federal officers arrested Shadrach Minkins in Boston under the Fugitive Slave Act, activists removed him from the courthouse and helped him escape. Collective action directly challenged a law...

Colombia passed a law to end slavery from the following January. Enslavers received compensation, while formerly enslaved people did not receive comparable reparations for their labor. The measure...

Sojourner Truth addressed the women’s rights convention in Akron, challenging assumptions that separated womanhood from the experiences of Black women. Accounts of her speech differ; the famous...

Black and white activists rescued William Henry from detention in Syracuse and helped him reach Canada. The rescue turned opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act into collective action. It showed how...

The law ending slavery in Colombia came into force. Freedom was a result of legal reform and long histories of resistance, flight, and negotiation by enslaved people. Equal access to land and secure...

Thousands attended a Faneuil Hall meeting after Anthony Burns was arrested as a fugitive from slavery. Activists also attempted a rescue. Their campaign exposed how federal institutions upheld...

Federal authorities escorted Anthony Burns through Boston and returned him to Virginia despite extensive protests. The use of troops showed that slavery relied on state power beyond plantation...

Ramón Castilla decreed the abolition of slavery. Afro-Peruvians’ struggles for freedom belonged to a broader conflict over a colonial institution surviving after independence. Ending legal enslavement...