People, Locations, Episodes

The Boone Hall Plantation is Built

*On this date in 1681, we affirm Boone Hall Plantation. This is one of the estimated 46,200 American plantations in 1860, located in Mount Pleasant, Charleston County, South Carolina. The earliest known reference to the site is in a land grant of 470 acres from owner Theophilus Patey to his daughter Elizabeth and her new […]

Isaac Hobhouse, British Slave Trader born

*The birth of Isaac Hobhouse is affirmed on this date in 1685.  He was a white English slave trader and merchant. He was the youngest of four children and was 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. […]

Antoine Vincent Walsh, Irish Slave Trader, born

*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, the son of Philip Walsh, Ballynacooly, County Kilkenny. His father was a Waterford merchant, who settled in Saint-Malo, Brittany, […]

Richard Oswald, Slave Merchant born

*The birth of Richard Oswald is affirmed on this date in 1705. He was a white Scottish merchant and 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 […]

Henry Laurens, Slave Trader born

*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 […]

Francisca da Silva de Oliveira, Afro Brazilian Socialite born

*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 […]

William Ansah Sessarakoo, Slave Trader born

*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 […]

Marie Coincoin, Businesswoman born.

*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 […]

Pierce Butler, Farmer and Slave Owner born

*Pierce Butler was born on this date in 1744. He was a white Irish American rice planter, slaveholder, politician, and military officer during the Antebellum South. Butler was born in Garryhundon, County Carlow, Ireland, into the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy. He was an Anglican until after the American Revolution, when he became a member of the Episcopal […]

Wentworth Cheswell, Businessman born

Wentworth Cheswell was born on this date in 1746. He was a Black businessman and politician.

From Newmarket, NH Cheswell was the only child of Hopestill and Catherine Keniston Cheswell. There is virtually no information about Catherine Keniston in Newmarket town records. However, the various local historians and genealogists generally accept that she came from a local Newmarket/Durham family, and that she was white. Like his father before him, Wentworth Cheswell was born to a white mother.

Prince Hall, Preacher, and Mason born

*Prince Hall was born (circa) on this date in 1748. He was a Black preacher, administrator, mason, and businessman.   From Bridgetown, Barbados, West Indies, Prince Hall was born free. His father, Thomas Prince Hall, was a white Englishman, and his mother was a free black French woman. In 1765, at 17, he worked his passage […]

Hercules Posey, Slave and Chef born

*The birth of Hercules Posey is celebrated on this date in 1748. He was an enslaved African owned by George Washington. He was born around 1748 and owned by America’s first president as collateral for an unpaid loan to his original owner, Washington’s neighbor John Posey. “Uncle Harkless,” as George Washington Parke Custis called him, […]

The Whitney Plantation is Built

*On this date in 1752, the Whitney Plantation is affirmed. It is located in Wallace, Louisiana, one of the estimated 46,200 American plantations in 1860. The plantation was started by white German immigrants Ambroise Haydel and his wife, and their descendants owned it until 1867. The French Creole-raised-style main house, built in 1803, is the […]

The African Company of Merchants is Formed

*The founding of the African Company of Merchants is affirmed on this date in 1752. This was a British chartered slave trading company operating from 1752 to 1821 in the Gold Coast area of modern Ghana. The indigenous Fante people dominated this coastal area. It was established by the African Company Act of 1750, and, in […]

Marie Bernard Couvent, Philanthropist born

*The birth of Marie Bernard Couvent is celebrated on this date in 1757.  She was a Black philanthropist and education advocate.  Born a slave in Benin, Africa, Marie Cirnaire came to New Orleans, Louisiana, and married Bernard Couvent, a carpenter, and former slave.  Together they accumulated property, other assets before he died.  In August 1831, […]