*José María Morales was born on this date in 1818. He was an Afro Argentine tinsmith legislator, and soldier. From Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was the son of a military patriot who fought in the British invasions. He also followed a military career and was part of the troops of Manuel Oribe until the age […]
learn more*Elizabeth Van Lew was born on this date in 1818. She was a white-American abolitionist and philanthropist. Elizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond, Virginia, to John Van Lew and Eliza Baker, whose maternal grandfather was abolitionist Hilary Baker, mayor of Philadelphia from 1796 to 1798. Her father came to Richmond in 1806 at 16; […]
learn more*Benjamin Franklin Butler was born on this date in 1818. He was a white-American major general, politician, lawyer, and businessman. Born in Deerfield, New Hampshire, and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is best known as a political major of the Union Army during the American Civil War and for his leadership role in the impeachment of U.S. President Andrew Johnson. He was a colorful and often controversial figure on the […]
learn more*The Battle of Grahamstown took place on this date in 1819. This was part of the Fifth Xhosa War at the frontier settlement of Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The battle defended the town by the British garrison, aided by a group of Khoekhoe marksmen, attacking Xhosa warriors. When a British-led force seized […]
learn moreOn this date in 1819, Miguel de Castro v. Ninety-five enslaved Africans was decided. This was a Libel case for restitution case against American chattel slavery. In October 1817, ninety-five enslaved Africans were taken by pirates from the Portuguese ship “Jesu Nasareno,” owned by Miguel de Castro. Originally bound for Havana, Cuba, the Africans were […]
learn more*The birth of Benjamin Franklin Randolph is celebrated on this date in 1820. He was a Black educator, an army chaplain, a minister, a newspaper editor, a politician, Early life Benjamin Franklin Randolph was born in Kentucky, the child of free Blacks. He moved with his family to Ohio as a child, where he attended […]
learn more*Fort Snelling is remembered on this date in 1820. This is a former military garrison built with slave labor to advance white American land acquisition from indigenous communities. It is in Minnesota on the bluffs overlooking where the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers meet. The military site was initially named Fort Saint Anthony, but it was renamed Fort […]
learn moreThe birth of John Jumper is celebrated on this date in c.1820. He was a native American, Principal Chief of the Seminole Nation, slave owner, and Baptist pastor. He was born into a prominent Seminole family. His uncle was Micanopy, the leading chief of the Seminole tribe, and his father was Ote Emathla, a trusted […]
learn more*The birth of Harriet Robinson Scott is celebrated on this date in c. 1820. She was a Black domestic who fought for her freedom alongside her husband, Dred Scott. Born into slavery, Harriet Robinson was brought from Pennsylvania to the Northwest Territory by Indian agent and slaveholder Lawrence Taliaferro in 1835. Around 1836, she married Dred […]
learn more*On this date in 1821, Nathan Forrest was born. He was a white-American slave trader and Confederate army officer. Nathan Bedford Forrest was born into a poor settler family in a secluded frontier cabin near Chapel Hill, Tennessee. He was the first son of Mariam (Beck) and William Forrest. His father, William, was of English descent, and his mother, Mariam, was […]
learn more*The Republic of Costa Rica gained independence from Spain on this date in 1821. The first Blacks to arrive in Costa Rica came through the middle passage with the Spanish conquistadors. Beginning in the 15th century, the slave trade was common in all the countries conquered by Spain. Costa Rica’s first Blacks were shipped from […]
learn more*On this date, in 1822, Ulysses S. Grant was born. He was a white-American soldier and politician. Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, to Jesse Root Grant, a tanner and merchant, and Hannah Simpson Grant. Grant’s great-grandfather fought in the French and Indian War, and his grandfather, Noah, served in the American Revolution at Bunker Hill. Their son Jesse (Ulysses’s father) was a Whig Party supporter and abolitionist. […]
learn moreHiram R. (Rhodes) Revels was born on this date in 1822. He was a Black educator, minister, and politician, and the first African American to serve in the United States Senate.
learn more*Robert Morris was born on this date in 1823. He was a Lawyer, abolitionist, and one of the first Black attorneys in the United States. Morris was born in Salem, Massachusetts. At the age of 15, Morris went to work as a household servant for the abolitionist lawyer Ellis Gray Loring. When Loring’s white copyist neglected his duties. Impressed with Morris’s legal […]
learn more*Sylvanus B. Lowry was born on this date in 1824. He was a white-American 19th-century political boss, slave owner, newspaper publisher, and pioneer. Born in Princeton, Kentucky, Lowry’s father was David Lowry, a Scottish-American Cumberland Presbyterian minister and missionary to the Winnebago people in northeast Iowa. In 1847, the Lowry family followed the Winnebago as […]
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