Feature
Untold: How African slaves wrested for liberation
When the end of slavery is discussed, it is too often framed as an act of white benevolence.
That is certainly untrue as it is an almost deliberate rewriting of history that erases the agency of the enslaved themselves.
Whites did not simply wake up one day and decide to free millions of Africans out of moral awakening. The enslaved forced the issue.
Recall the Haitian Revolution which sent shockwaves through the colonial world, proving that enslaved people could not only resist but win.
Across the Americas, from the Maroon wars in Jamaica to rebellions in the United States, Africans fought, sabotaged, and escaped, making slavery increasingly untenable.
Even in the American Civil War, freedom for millions was not merely granted; it was seized.
Countless enslaved men and women fled plantations, joined Union lines, and turned the war into a war for liberation.
The end of slavery was not a gift. It was a victory wrested from the grip of those who profited from bondage.
