“Enslaved African Americans built the modern United States, and indeed the entire modern world, in ways both obvious and hidden.”

― Edward E. Baptist, “The Half Has Never Been Told”

When we accept that […]

Taíno leader Francisco “Panchito” Ramírez Rojas offers a prayer to the sea near Baracoa on Cuba’s eastern coast. (Maggie Steber)Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/what-became-of-the-taino-73824867/#wiZIgbmPBiP3ztql.99Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGvFollow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

If you […]

Native mariners discovered the Caribbean thousands of years before Columbus arrived. When Spanish ships landed at Guanahani, on October 12, 1492, the Greater Antilles were densely inhabited by diverse Native peoples. Speaking several languages, they lived in independent and self-sufficient communities. Centuries earlier, large Taíno chiefdoms had expanded over several islands, establishing a sphere of […]

Rebellious slaves battle French troops in Saint Domingue, now Haiti

Africans resisted slavery at every point. There were rebellions on board the ships that carried them across the oceans, which often resulted in the cruelest retaliation. But […]

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldrin’in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-mouldrin’in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-mouldrin’in the grave, But his soul goes marching on.”

John Brown in about 1856

THE MARCHING song “John Brown’s Body” […]

Historian Marcus Rediker spoke to Ken Olende about the struggles that took place aboard the ships of early capitalism.

The first strike wasn’t in a factory or an office. It wasn’t even on land. US historian […]

A map of the transatlantic slave trade

People across the political spectrum acknowledge that racism exists, but its origins are shrouded in mystery—deliberately so.

Racism is presented as if it has always existed, and individuals make a personal […]

David Comissiong
July 2018

1. Acquire and inculcate in ourselves, our people, our institutions, and our Governments a deep knowledge of our history.

2. Systematically identify, expose, and root out all still existing structural and institutional discriminatory practices and built-in obstacles to the advancement of Black or African people in our nations and in the international arena.

3. Consciously […]

(A joint statement from the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) and the Centre for Reparation Research (CRR)

June 26, 2018

In a recent column published in the Jamaica Observer newspaper, UK Minister Lord Tariq Ahmad, said it was his honour, as minister of state for the Caribbean and the Commonwealth, “to join in celebrating the achievements of […]

In the years in which reparation advocates have been active in the campaign for reparation for native genocide, African enslavement and post-colonial harm, some remarkable advances have been made.

The Jamaican Parliament has passed a historic bipartisan motion calling for reparation to be made to Jamaica by the United Kingdom for the crimes against humanity which […]

The recent revelation that the British Government deported hundreds of Caribbean nationals, many of whom migrated to the UK under the Nationality Act of 1948 as citizens of the Commonwealth, and were granted indefinite leave to remain, is, in the words of British MP David Lammy, “inhumane and cruel”. It is inhumane and cruel because […]