1. Abolitionist John Brown was born today in the year 1800. He played a major role in guerrilla actions against slavery.   

    John Brown believed in freedom for ALL men and that slavery was morally wrong. Contrary to most abolitionists, he advocated the use of violence to destroy the immoral and violent institution of slavery.  He is remembered for his involvement in what is known as the Pottawatomie Massacre and the Harper’s Ferry raid in 1859, which led to his capture and execution. 

    Although some may view his actions as unsuccessful, John Brown’s beliefs and actions  for the eradication of slavery in America ultimately played a role in the advent of the Civil War.

  2. Slave Deeds →

    “Property.” That’s how men, women and children were recorded in slaveholders’ deeds. These documents provide invaluable information on the sales that provoked untold miseries and family separations, but can also reveal family ties. Now available online is the rich Register of Deeds of North Carolina’s Buncombe County. The records, from 1776 to 1865, are searchable by page and book number and list the sellers and the buyers by name. As we continue to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of slavery’s abolition, it is important to never forget the past.

  3. Think the fictional character “Django” is the only slave to seek vengeance on slave owners? Well, try visualizing the 1811 German Coast Uprising (celebrating its 202nd anniversary today), with 200-500 male slaves participating! Led by Charles Deslondes, the Uprising was the United State’s largest slave revolt, which resulted in the death of only two white men but around 100 black men—killed both through militia clashes and executions by trial.The revolt was sparked at the Andre plantation, where slaves Quamana, Harry and Charles Deslondes conspired and eventually struck plantation owner Manuel Andre and killed his son. They fled and started their march down the east coast of the Mississippi River where they gathered more fighters, beating drums and waving flags. As they headed toward New Orleans, they burned five plantation houses and multiple sugarhouses. The revolt met its end at the Bernoudy plantation at about 9 p.m., where a militia had been organized to meet them: 40-45 slaves were killed, and the remainder escaped into the woods. Charles Deslondes, the main leader of the revolt, was captured and immediately gruesomely killed, with his hands chopped off, his legs shot, and his body burned. After the showdown, about 30 of the fighters were found, tried, and executed (with their heads put on pikes as a warning). Another 56 were returned to their masters and no doubt punished, but 30 slaves were sent back to their plantations and not punished because the white militia determined that they had been forced to join the revolt by Deslondes.The men of the German Coast Uprising lunged for freedom violently, destroying plantations and killing two people, risking certain death and torture for fleeting freedom. Their uprising is a testament both to the crushing pressure of institutionalized racism and the human need for self-determination. And who knew for sure how it would conclude? Maybe their revolt could have spread and sustained, sparking a revolution like the storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution. The Uprising occurred more than 200 years ago. We must honor the fighters for stretching the nation’s imagination to see the end of slavery, for showing that African-Americans were not naturally subservient or too imbecilic to want freedom.

    Think the fictional character “Django” is the only slave to seek vengeance on slave owners? Well, try visualizing the 1811 German Coast Uprising (celebrating its 202nd anniversary today), with 200-500 male slaves participating! Led by Charles Deslondes, the Uprising was the United State’s largest slave revolt, which resulted in the death of only two white men but around 100 black men—killed both through militia clashes and executions by trial.

    The revolt was sparked at the Andre plantation, where slaves Quamana, Harry and Charles Deslondes conspired and eventually struck plantation owner Manuel Andre and killed his son. They fled and started their march down the east coast of the Mississippi River where they gathered more fighters, beating drums and waving flags. As they headed toward New Orleans, they burned five plantation houses and multiple sugarhouses. The revolt met its end at the Bernoudy plantation at about 9 p.m., where a militia had been organized to meet them: 40-45 slaves were killed, and the remainder escaped into the woods. Charles Deslondes, the main leader of the revolt, was captured and immediately gruesomely killed, with his hands chopped off, his legs shot, and his body burned. After the showdown, about 30 of the fighters were found, tried, and executed (with their heads put on pikes as a warning). Another 56 were returned to their masters and no doubt punished, but 30 slaves were sent back to their plantations and not punished because the white militia determined that they had been forced to join the revolt by Deslondes.


    The men of the German Coast Uprising lunged for freedom violently, destroying plantations and killing two people, risking certain death and torture for fleeting freedom. Their uprising is a testament both to the crushing pressure of institutionalized racism and the human need for self-determination. And who knew for sure how it would conclude? Maybe their revolt could have spread and sustained, sparking a revolution like the storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution.

    The Uprising occurred more than 200 years ago. We must honor the fighters for stretching the nation’s imagination to see the end of slavery, for showing that African-Americans were not naturally subservient or too imbecilic to want freedom.

  4. Remembering Samuel Sharpe

    Before his execution in 1832, Samuel Sharpe—leader of Jamaican’s Baptist War Slave Rebellion—said: “I would rather die among yonder gallows, than live in slavery.”

  5. Kent State University’s Department of Pan-African Studies is hosting the conference “Slavery, Colonialism and African Identities in the Atlantic World” on April 26 and 27, 2012 in Oscar Ritchie Hall. The keynote speaker is Sylviane Diouf, Ph.D., author of the renowned book Dreams of Africa in Alabama, which won the 2009 James F. Sulzby Award of the Alabama Historical Association, was a 2008 Finalist Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and won the 2007 Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historical Association. She is also author of the acclaimed book Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. Diouf is currently  Curator of Digital Collections  at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her address is titled “Deconstructing and Reconstructing Africans’ Identities During Slavery.” Conference registration is $20. Students and faculty are eligible to have the fee waived.For  more information, please visit: http://www.kent.edu/CAS/PAS/conference/schedule.cfm

    Kent State University’s Department of Pan-African Studies is hosting the conference “Slavery, Colonialism and African Identities in the Atlantic World” on April 26 and 27, 2012 in Oscar Ritchie Hall.

    The keynote speaker is Sylviane Diouf, Ph.D., author of the renowned book Dreams of Africa in Alabama, which won the 2009 James F. Sulzby Award of the Alabama Historical Association, was a 2008 Finalist Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and won the 2007 Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historical Association. She is also author of the acclaimed book Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. Diouf is currently  Curator of Digital Collections  at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her address is titled “Deconstructing and Reconstructing Africans’ Identities During Slavery.”

    Conference registration is $20. Students and faculty are eligible to have the fee waived.For  more information, please visit: http://www.kent.edu/CAS/PAS/conference/schedule.cfm

    (Source: )

  6. By: Sylviane A. Diouf, Curator of Digital Collections, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Story has it that 270 years ago, Chico Rei, believed to have been a ruler in Congo, his family, and others were forced aboard a slave ship. The Middle Passage took his wife and children, but he and one son survived. They landed in Brazil and were sent to Vila Rica (Rich Town, founded in 1711) in the region of Minas Gerais, the center of the gold rush. For a few years, half of the extracted gold in the world came from its hills — the city is at 4,000 feet elevation — and rivers.  Like another 21,000 enslaved people (97 percent of them African-born) Chico Rei, it is said, labored in the mines. Working every Sunday for himself, he bought his son’s freedom, then his own, and later purchased the Encardadeira mine — where he used to work. With its benefits, he freed a large number of Africans who in turn bought the freedom of others.  They built a church dedicated to the  Nubian princess St. Iphigenia. The      church is located on the highest hill so  that it could be seen from everywhere.  Inside are representations of two other  black saints: Benedict and Antônio de  Noto. Fact or fiction — and there is a  lot of the latter, as Chico Rei has      gained mythical status and his very    existence is in dispute— it is said    that Africans went to mass with gold  powder in their hair and washed it away in the baptismal fonts. Chico Rei is credited by the brotherhood with being the founder of the Congado — a religious and cultural dance and procession that culminates in the coronation of the king and queen of Congo — in Minas Gerais. Congados continue to be held every year at the end of October, on January 1, and on May 13, which marks the abolition of slavery in 1888. For more information about Chico Rei, click here.

    By: Sylviane A. Diouf, Curator of Digital Collections, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

    Story has it that 270 years ago, Chico Rei, believed to have been a ruler in Congo, his family, and others were forced aboard a slave ship. The Middle Passage took his wife and children, but he and one son survived. They landed in Brazil and were sent to Vila Rica (Rich Town, founded in 1711) in the region of Minas Gerais, the center of the gold rush. For a few years, half of the extracted gold in the world came from its hills — the city is at 4,000 feet elevation — and rivers. 

    Like another 21,000 enslaved people (97 percent of them African-born) Chico Rei, it is said, labored in the mines. Working every Sunday for himself, he bought his son’s freedom, then his own, and later purchased the Encardadeira mine — where he used to work. With its benefits, he freed a large number of Africans who in turn bought the freedom of others.

     They built a church dedicated to the  Nubian princess St. Iphigenia. The      church is located on the highest hill so  that it could be seen from everywhere.  Inside are representations of two other  black saints: Benedict and Antônio de  Noto. Fact or fiction — and there is a  lot of the latter, as Chico Rei has      gained mythical status and his very    existence is in dispute— it is said    that Africans went to mass with gold  powder in their hair and washed it away in the baptismal fonts.

    Chico Rei is credited by the brotherhood with being the founder of the Congado — a religious and cultural dance and procession that culminates in the coronation of the king and queen of Congo — in Minas Gerais. Congados continue to be held every year at the end of October, on January 1, and on May 13, which marks the abolition of slavery in 1888.

    For more information about Chico Rei, click here.

  7. The Statue of Liberty celebrates turns 125 today. While the “La Liberté éclairant le monde” (Liberty Enlightening the World) opened to the public in 1886, planning for it began in 1865 by French abolitionists and admirers of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment. A broken chain lies at her feet. Many Americans were reluctant to accept the gift. Supporters of the former Confederacy called the French offer an arrogant misunderstanding of American history. They mounted a successful campaign to associate the Statue with the American Revolution—plus the coming waves of immigrants to the U.S.—and not the Civil War. During the Transatlantic slave trade, French voices to abolish slavery were muffled by investors who profited greatly. As French sugar plantations prospered in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and Reunion (Indian Ocean)—domestic ports at Nantes, Bordeaux, Rouen, Marseille and Saint-Malo profited, too. 18th century philosopher Denis Diderot challenged the slave system and exalted Afro-Roman playwright Terence Afer, a former slave as a global champion of human rights and the abolition of slavery, which France did not heed. France abolished slavery in 1794 but Napoleon re-instated it in 1802. It was completely abolished in 1848.  In 1885, France and Great Britain took the lead in the Berlin Conference, which literally divided Africa among the European nations. “Homo sum: humani nil a me aleinum puto. I am a human being, nothing of human interest can be alien to me.”—Terence Afer By: Christopher Moore, Curator and Special Projects Coordinator, Schomburg Center Resource: The Image of the Black in Western Art Photo Credits: Terence’s statement of humanity as an anti-slavery motto in France,1773. Immigrants First View of America, NYPL, Digital Library Statue of Liberty, 2011 by Chris Moore

    The Statue of Liberty celebrates turns 125 today. While the “La Liberté éclairant le monde” (Liberty Enlightening the World) opened to the public in 1886, planning for it began in 1865 by French abolitionists and admirers of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment. A broken chain lies at her feet.

    Many Americans were reluctant to accept the gift. Supporters of the former Confederacy called the French offer an arrogant misunderstanding of American history. They mounted a successful campaign to associate the Statue with the American Revolution—plus the coming waves of immigrants to the U.S.—and not the Civil War.

    During the Transatlantic slave trade, French voices to abolish slavery were muffled by investors who profited greatly. As French sugar plantations prospered in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and Reunion (Indian Ocean)—domestic ports at Nantes, Bordeaux, Rouen, Marseille and Saint-Malo profited, too.

    18th century philosopher Denis Diderot challenged the slave system and exalted Afro-Roman playwright Terence Afer, a former slave as a global champion of human rights and the abolition of slavery, which France did not heed. France abolished slavery in 1794 but Napoleon re-instated it in 1802. It was completely abolished in 1848.  In 1885, France and Great Britain took the lead in the Berlin Conference, which literally divided Africa among the European nations.

    “Homo sum: humani nil a me aleinum puto.
    I am a human being, nothing of human interest can be alien to me.”—Terence Afer

    By: Christopher Moore, Curator and Special Projects Coordinator, Schomburg Center

    Resource:

    The Image of the Black in Western Art

    Photo Credits:

  8. Distribution of Enslaved Africans in the Americas “Of the estimated ten million men, women, and children who survived the Middle Passage, approximately 450,000 Africans disembarked on North America’s shores. They thus represented only a fraction—5 percent—of those transported during the 350-year history of the international slave trade. Brazil and the Caribbean each received about nine times as many Africans.”--Africans in America, In Motion: The African American Migration Experience

    Distribution of Enslaved Africans in the Americas

    “Of the estimated ten million men, women, and children who survived the Middle Passage, approximately 450,000 Africans disembarked on North America’s shores. They thus represented only a fraction—5 percent—of those transported during the 350-year history of the international slave trade. Brazil and the Caribbean each received about nine times as many Africans.”--Africans in America, In Motion: The African American Migration Experience

  9. By Christopher Moore, Curator and Special Projects Coordinator, Schomburg Center On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus ignited the greatest change to the Americas and its people since the Ice Age. Conquest of the indigenous population and alien principles of property ownership consumed the Americas and the rest of the world. By 1820, enslaved African men, women and children constituted some 80 percent of all the people who had embarked for the Americas since 1500. “This original black majority became indispensable in creating the prosperous New World that by the mid-nineteenth century began attracting millions of voluntary European immigrants.” Source: Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Yale University Press 2010, is located in the General Research and Reference Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.  Photo Credits: L to R: German Immigrants, NYPL Digital Library; Omaha Woman, NYPL Digital Library; Christoforo Columbus, 1519; A Slave, Gordon, scarred from whippings. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center; Immigrants First View of America, NYPL Digital Library.

    By Christopher Moore, Curator and Special Projects Coordinator, Schomburg Center

    On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus ignited the greatest change to the Americas and its people since the Ice Age. Conquest of the indigenous population and alien principles of property ownership consumed the Americas and the rest of the world. By 1820, enslaved African men, women and children constituted some 80 percent of all the people who had embarked for the Americas since 1500.

    “This original black majority became indispensable in creating the prosperous New World that by the mid-nineteenth century began attracting millions of voluntary European immigrants.” Source: Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Yale University Press 2010, is located in the General Research and Reference Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library. 

    Photo Credits: L to R: German Immigrants, NYPL Digital Library; Omaha Woman,
    NYPL Digital Library; Christoforo Columbus, 1519; A Slave, Gordon, scarred from whippings. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center; Immigrants First View of America, NYPL Digital Library.

  10. Join us for a discussion of A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2011) on October 13, 2011. In 1831, Omar ibn Said, a Senegalese former trader and teacher, enslaved in Fayetteville, North Carolina, wrote his autobiography in Arabic. Yale Professor Ala Alryyes will present a new translation of  what is the only known surviving slave narrative written in Arabic, and sign his book.

    Omar ibn Said’s exceptional 180 year-old manuscript will be on display.