Slavery & Abolition

Zambi of Palmares is Beheaded

On 20 November 1695, Zambi of Palmares – ruler of an ‘invincible’ community of former slaves in the Brazilian jungle – was killed by the Portuguese.

Scotland Too

Scotland’s profiteering and complicity within the British Empire’s transatlantic slave trade.

Frederick Douglass on Tour

When the abolitionist author visited Britain and Ireland in 1845 he was celebrated in poems and songs wherever he went. Arriving as an enslaved man, he left with his freedom.

The Man who Haunts America

John Brown, the abolitionist firebrand, remains a potent figure in the United States’ febrile politics of race.

America’s Western Problem

Indigenous peoples in the West of the United States continued to be held in bondage long after the abolition of plantation slavery in the South.

Colonial Mentalities

A culture war on race and empire divided the intellectual classes of Victorian Britain.

Slaves and Indians

Europeans did not introduce slavery to North America – although they did change the way it was practised.

Beyond Profit

The Dutch role in the slave trade cannot be dismissed as a matter of numbers.