In this article, the influential newspaper The Revolutions of Paris asks if Africans and their descendants are "Born to Slavery?" as part of a general consideration of the situation in the French colonies.

In this excerpted source, Venture Smith recalls his experiences in the slave trade as a child. This source is especially important, as Smith gives a very vivid account of slave raiding, a common practice that took place during the peak years of the slave trade in the 18th century. Smith, the son of a Guinean Prince, was sold into slavery at the young age of three by his own mother. Unable to... Read More »

This image is of an advertisement for a nearly equal number of adults and children from Sierra Leone at a Charleston Auction. This image is important for several reasons, namely because one should see what an auction advertisement looks like, but also because the number of boys and girls is nearly equal to that of the number of men and women imported. Other things that should be pointed out is... Read More »

Abbé Guillaume–Thomas Raynal (1711–96), known by his clerical title [abbé refers to ecclesiastical training], first published his multivolume history of European colonization anonymously in French in 1770. Today many sections of it seem almost quaint and hopelessly detailed, for Raynal and his collaborators (among them Diderot) gathered every imaginable fact to support their scathing... Read More »