Henry Washington, slave, loyalist, and colonizer, was born in Africa, perhaps in the Senegambia (present day Senegal and Gambia). Transported as a slave to America, he was bought by George Washington in 1763 to work on a project for draining the Great Dismal Swamp in … Read MoreHenry Washington (ca. 1740-ca. 1801)
This historic proclamation, dated November 7, 1775 and issued from on board a British warship lying off Norfolk, Virginia, by royal governor and Scottish aristocrat John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, offered the first large-scale emancipation of slave and servant labor in the history of colonial … Read More(1775) Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation
Ethiopianism is an Afro-Atlantic literary-religious tradition that emerged out of the shared political and religious experiences of Africans from British colonies during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Ethiopianism linked Africa historically to the ancient classical era, challenging the then prevailing idea that the … Read MoreEthiopianism
Jack and his wife Sophy were enslaved in Middletown, Connecticut to Philip Mortimer (1710-1794), a wealthy Irish businessman. Philip Mortimer freed them in his will, but his son-in-law, George Starr, contested and succeeded in overturning the will. Mortimer’s will also intended to give Jack and … Read MoreJack Mortimer (1700’s)
Born in West Africa, Prince Mortimer was captured by slave traders as a young boy. After enduring a brutal passage to the Americas, he arrived in Connecticut around 1730. In the late 1750s he was sold in Middletown, Connecticut to Philip Mortimer, who trained him … Read MorePrince Mortimer (ca. 1724-1834)
The New York Slave Conspiracy of 1741 is an extraordinarily complex story. Some historians have dismissed the idea that slaves actually conspired to overthrow chattel bondage and gain their freedom, while others have argued that the events in New York were part of a mixed … Read MoreNew York Slave Conspiracy (1741)
Between twenty-five and fifty blacks congregated at midnight in New York City, New York on April 6, 1712. With guns, swords and knives in hand, the slaves first set fire to an outhouse then fired shots at several white slave owners, who had raced to … Read MoreNew York City Slave Uprising (1712)
Betsey Stockton was born into slavery in Princeton, New Jersey in 1798. She belonged to Robert Stockton, a local attorney. Presented to Stockton’s daughter and son-in-law, the Rev. Ashbel Green, then President of Princeton College, as a gift, Betsy Stockton was now in a household … Read MoreBetsey Stockton (1798-1865)
Olaudah Equiano, whose father was an Ibo chief, was born in 1745 in what is now Southern Nigeria. At the age of 11 years, Olaudah was captured by African slave traders and sold into bondage in the New World. Equiano, given the name Gustavus Vassa … Read MoreOlaudah Equiano (1745-1797)
Grace Bustill Douglass, a Quaker abolitionist, was born into a distinguished black activist family in Burlington, New Jersey. She was the fifth of eight children born to Cyrus Bustill, a baker, and Elizabeth Morey Bustill, the daughter of an Englishman and a Delaware Indian woman. … Read MoreGrace Bustill Douglass (1782-1842)
