Somerset judgment limits removal of enslaved people from England

In 1750 the trustees’ restriction on slavery gave way as settlers and planters pressed for plantation labor. Enslaved Africans were brought into the colony in growing numbers. This reversal shows...

An uprising associated with the Akan leader Tacky began at St Mary, Jamaica, and expanded into a broad anti-slavery war. Insurgents attacked plantation infrastructure and sought to overthrow the...

A royal decree declared enslaved people arriving in mainland Portugal free, an important but geographically limited measure. It did not free people in Brazil or Portuguese African territories, and the...

An uprising began on plantations along the Canje River and rapidly spread through Dutch Berbice. Cuffy and other leaders organized a large insurgent force and negotiated with colonial authorities...

Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Indigenous ancestry, was among five people killed by British soldiers. Later patriot memory made the event a symbol of liberty while often obscuring...

A petition submitted in Felix’s name demanded freedom and challenged enslavement as incompatible with natural rights. It was one of several petitions by Black people in Massachusetts that used the...

The colony restricted the importation of enslaved people and imposed penalties on traders, while existing slavery and Rhode Island’s participation in the Atlantic economy continued. The act came after...

The organization formed to assist free Black people illegally held in bondage and later broadened its work against slavery. Its founding preceded the Declaration of Independence and shows abolitionist...

During the American Revolution, Virginia’s royal governor offered freedom to enslaved people belonging to rebels who joined British forces. The offer was a military strategy, not a principled...

The Declaration announced that “all men are created equal” while its authors and the new republic remained entangled in slavery. The contradiction was challenged by Black writers, petitioners,...