*On this date in 1653, we affirm the Cape Coast Castle. This was one of about forty “slave castles,” or commercial Forts, built by European traders on the Gold Coast of West Africa (now Ghana). It was initially a Portuguese trading post. However, in 1653, the Swedish Africa Company constructed a timber fort there. It originally was […]
learn more*Fort Apollonia was established on this date in 1655. It was used during the Middle Passage; its name, Apollonia, was given by a Portuguese explorer who sighted the place on the Feast of Saint Apollonia on this month and day in History. The Swedes established a trading post at Apollonia as part of the Swedish Gold […]
learn more*Fort James was built on this date in 1659. It was a slave-holding Fort located in Accra, Ghana. In 1673, the Royal African Company of England (RAC) built it as a trading post for gold and slaves, joining the Dutch Fort Crêvecœur (1649) and the Danish Fort Christiansborg (1652) along the Coast of the then-Gold Coast. […]
learn more*On this date in 1660, the Osu Castle is affirmed. This slave Fort (also known as Fort Christiansborg) is a castle in Osu, Ghana, on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea in Africa. The facility was built by Denmark-Norway, Portugal, Akwamu, Britain, and finally, post-Independence Ghana. Under Denmark–Norway control, it was the capital of the Danish […]
learn more*On this date, the 1662 founding of the Royal African Company (RAC) is briefly examined. This was an Irish/English commercial slave trading company set up by the royal Stuart family and the City of London to trade along the west coast of Africa. It was led by the Duke of York, who was the brother of Charles II and later took the throne as James II. Soon after […]
learn more*The French West India Company was founded on this date in 1664. It was a French trading company that participated in the Middle Passage. It was created approximately three months before Jean-Baptiste Colbert established his eastern company. The company received the French possessions of the Atlantic coasts of Africa and America and was granted a […]
learn more*The Danish West India Company was formed on this date in 1671. This was a Dano-Norwegian chartered slave-trading business that operated out of the colonies during the Middle Passage in the Danish West Indies. Originally the Danish Africa Company, it was started in Glückstadt by Finnish Hendrik Carloff, two Dutchmen, and two German merchants. Their […]
learn more*On this date in 1681, we affirm Boone Hall Plantation. It is located in Mount Pleasant, Charleston County, South Carolina, and was one of the estimated 46,200 American plantations in 1860. The earliest known reference to the site is a 470-acre land grant from owner Theophilus Patey to his daughter Elizabeth and her new husband, […]
learn more*The birth of Isaac Hobhouse is affirmed on this date in 1685. He was a white British slave trader and merchant. He was the youngest of four children, born in Minehead, Somerset, England, to John Hobhouse and Anne Maddox. In the seventeenth century, the Hobhouse family worked as shipwrights and mariners in Minehead. Shortly after […]
learn more*Antoine Vincent Walsh was born on this date in 1703. He was a white Irish shipowner and African slave trader in Nantes, France, whose family were exiled Jacobites. Antoine Walsh was born in Saint-Malo, Brittany, France, and was the son of Philip Walsh, Ballynacooly, County Kilkenny. His father was a Waterford merchant who settled in […]
learn more*Richard Oswald’s birth on this date in 1705 is affirmed. He was a white Scottish merchant and chattel slave trader. Richard Oswald was born to the Reverend George Oswald of Dunnet and his wife, Margaret Murray. At age 20, he was apprenticed to cousins who were merchants in Glasgow, the brothers Richard Oswald of Scotstoun […]
learn more*Henry Laurens was born on this date in 1724. He was a white-American merchant, slave trader, and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as President of the Congress. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and President of […]
learn more*The birth of Francisca da Silva de Oliveira is celebrated on this date in c. 1732. She was an Afro Brazilian socialite who became eminent for becoming rich and powerful despite being born into slavery. Francisca was the daughter of a Portuguese man, Antônio Caetano de Sá, and an enslaved African woman, Maria da Costa, from the […]
learn more*The birth of William Ansah Sessarakoo is affirmed on this date in c. 1736. He was a Black African slave trader and writer. He was prominent among his Fante people and influential among Europeans concerned with the Middle Passage. Ansah was born in Annamaboe, the then-largest slave-trading port on the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana). His father, John […]
learn more*The birth of Marie Coincoin is celebrated on this date in 1742. She was a Black nurse, planter, slave owner, and businesswoman at the colonial Louisiana outpost of Natchitoches Parish. A Louisianan Creole, Marie Theresa Coincoin was born into the slavery of Louis Antoine Juchereau de St. Denis. Her parents were François and Marie Françoise; she […]
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