Why Africans? A Perfect Storm of 159 Years

African American History, captured Africans, Native Americans, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

As a student of American history in college my ongoing questions were, ” Why Africans became the slave of choice in the Western Hemisphere. How and why was their enslavement so pervasive?” Responses ranged from physical: easier to identify; hardier than indigenous and European people; socio-political: their governments and institutions did not have the required international power and structure to protect their members; cultural: they were the pagan “other,” associated Read More

Any Day Will Do

African American History, African Diaspora, Native Americans, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

Recently someone asked why we selected August 23rd as the day the project will remember the transatlantic slave trade and its abolition. I could be flippant and state that it’s arbitrary, any day would do since enslavement occurred 365 days/year, but that is not quite true. We have adopted that day because the international community selected it in honor of the abolition of slavery in the British colonies in 1833. Read More

Human Wastage: The Price of Doing Business

African American History, African Diaspora, Middle Passage, Slave economy, slave ports, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

In researching this project, I have started reading The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker (2008). He argues that the African transatlantic slave trade was the first rung in the ladder of global capitalism, or what we know now as a global economy that all governments, many businesses and people are attempting to understand, modify or control. One sentence in the introduction struck a chord because it directly relates to Read More

Brown Trucks

African American History, African Diaspora, ancestors, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, transatlantic slave trade

In many ways there are brown trucks everywhere. So many events around the world reinforce our efforts to remember ancestors who suffered the transatlantic slave trade. On August 23, 2011 (The International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition) the UN made a final formal call for the design of the monument to be installed at the UN to memorialize the trade’s horrors, and Irina Bakova who Read More