Sidi Mubarak Bombay, one of the most extensive travelers in sub-Saharan Africa in the 19th century, was honored for his assistance to British explorers and adventurers. Bombay, of waYao/Bantu ethnicity, was born in the Ruvuma Region of southern Tanzania around 1820. Separated from his parents … Read MoreSidi Mubarak Bombay (a.k.a. Mbarak Mombée, 1820?-1885)
John Edmonstone was a Guyanese-born enslaved person and taxidermist who later became a taxidermy teacher in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edmonstone was best known as a mentor of young Charles Robert Darwin, who would become a renowned naturalist and geologist. Edmonstone was born into slavery on a … Read MoreJohn Edmonstone (? – ?)
Isaac Lane was born March 4, 1834, in Madison County, five miles from the city of Jackson, Tennessee. His mother, Rachel, was an enslaved person belonging to his master and white father, Cullen Lane. Virtually abandoned by his parents, Lane suffered many of the harsh … Read MoreIsaac Lane (1834-1937)
The Black Maroons of Florida, also known as Black Seminoles, Seminole Maroons, and Seminole Freedmen, were a community derived from Runaway slaves who integrated into American Indian culture. They were mostly Gullah fugitives who escaped from the rice plantations in South Carolina and Georgia who … Read MoreThe Black Maroons of Florida (1693-1850)
The Malê Rebellion in Brazil, also known as The Great Revolt, was a Muslim slave rebellion in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, in January 1835. The uprising occurred on a Sunday during Ramadan when enslaved African Muslims and freemen rose against the government. Yoruba and Hausa Muslims … Read MoreThe Malê Rebellion in Brazil (1835)
At the beginning of the Civil War, there were approximately two million enslaved women. An estimated 500,000 of these women fled from slavery as soon as white men left their plantations and homes to join the Confederate army. Those fleeing from slavery escaped to Union-occupied … Read MoreContraband Relief Association (1862-1865)
As American settlers moved westward in the mid 19tth century they encountered the vast Mexican territory of Texas y Coahuila. Sparsely populated with fertile land, this Mexican territory was attractive to American land speculators, southern plantation owners, and slave traders. Landowners could cultivate cotton, rice, … Read MoreBlacks and the Texas Revolution (1835-1836)
Abraham Galloway, freedom-fighter, spy, abolitionist, and politician, is an unsung hero of American history. Galloway was born a slave on February 8, 1837 in Smithville (now Southport), North Carolina, the son of an enslaved woman and a white boatman. Little is known about his youth, … Read MoreAbraham Galloway (1837-1870)
The forced removal of Native Americans from the southeastern United States beginning in the 1830s to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River is known as the Trail of Tears. Under British colonial rule and continuing during the first decades of American independence, Indians were … Read MoreTrail of Tears (1831-1850)
The California Gold Rush, from 1848 to 1860, began after gold was discovered by carpenter and sawmill operator James W. Marshall on January 24, 1848. After Marshall’s discovery, thousands of people came to the goldfields in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern … Read MoreAfrican Americans in the California Gold Rush (1848-1860)
