“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Pamela E. Bridgewater is a career Foreign Service officer who has been recognized for important diplomatic work in South Africa, Ghana, and Liberia. Her most recent posting was as U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica. Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Bridgewater earned a … Read MorePamela E. Bridgewater (1947- )
On July 2, 2009 President Barack Obama appointed Gayleatha Beatrice Brown to be the United States ambassador to Burkina Faso, a nation in West Africa. This was her second ambassadorial appointment. Previously, Brown had been appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as U.S. … Read MoreGayleatha Beatrice Brown (1947-2013)
Following the introduction of cattle into the Caribbean in 1493, during Christopher Columbus’s second voyage, cattle ranching proliferated along a series of frontiers across the grasslands of North and South America. While historians have recognized that Africans and their descendants were involved in the establishment … Read MoreAfrican Cowboys on the Argentine Pampas: Their Disappearance from the Historical Record
Clinton Everett Knox was the first African American secretary to the United States Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and former United States Ambassador to the countries of Dahomey (Benin) and Haiti. Clinton E. Knox was born May 5, 1908, in New Bedford, … Read MoreClinton E. Knox (1908-1980)
Niamey, the largest city and capital of the West African nation of Niger, is located in the southwestern part of the country along the left bank of the Niger River. Niger is the largest nation within West Africa in terms of physical size, and Niamey … Read MoreNiamey, Niger (1902- )
Porto-Novo, meaning “New Port” in Portuguese, became the official capital of the West African country of Benin in 1960. In 2002 it had an estimated population of 223,552 people. Porto-Novo is located in the southeastern part of the country on an inlet of the Gulf … Read MorePorto-Novo, Benin (16th Century- )
The Ahosi (Amazons) of Dahomey were a military corps of women appointed to serve in battles under the direction of the Fon king, who ruled over a nation that included much of present-day southern Togo and southern Benin. They emerged during the Eighteenth Century and … Read MoreAhosi (Amazons) of Dahomey
Cudjo Lewis is considered the last survivor of the last slave ship to enter the United States. Born around 1841 to a Yoruba family in the Banté region of Dahomey (today Benin), he was given the name Oluale Kossola (Kazoola). At age fourteen, Kossola began … Read MoreKossola Cudjo Lewis (ca. 1841-1935)
The schooner Clotilda is the last known United States slave ship to bring enslaved people from Africa to the United States. Constructed in 1855 by the Mobile, Alabama captain and shipbuilder William Foster, the Clotilda was originally intended for the “Texas trade.” It was eighty-six … Read MoreClotilda (Slave Ship)
