People, Locations, Episodes

The Swedish West India Company is Formed

*The Swedish West India Company is affirmed on this date in 1786.  This was a Swedish chartered company that was based in the West Indies. It was the primary operator in the Swedish slave trade during the Middle Passage. Between 1786 and 1805, the company operated from the Swedish island of Saint-Barthélemy. The company was a […]

George Washington Bush, Farmer born

*The birth of George Bush is celebrated on this date in 1790.  He was a Black farmer.  George Washington Bush was born in Pennsylvania in the late 1700s. Information about his birth and early years is sparse and conflicting.  His father, Mathew Bush, was Black and was said to be a sailor from the British West […]

Thomas Downing, Restaurant Owner born

*The birth of Thomas Downing is celebrated on this date in 1791. He was a free Black businessman and restaurant owner. Thomas Downing was born to formerly enslaved parents in the island village of Chincoteague, VA. Growing up, he learned how to fish and dig for clams and oysters on his family’s land. Downing left […]

Thomas Jennings, Tradesman born

*The Birth of Thomas Jennings is celebrated on this date in 1791.  He was a Black tradesman and abolitionist.   Thomas L. Jennings was born to a free Black family in New York City. As a youth, he learned a trade as a tailor. He built a business and married a woman named Elizabeth from […]

James Birney, Abolitionist born.

*James G. Birney was born on this date in 1792.  He was a white-American abolitionist and politician who was a slave owner.    From Danville, Kentucky, James Gillespie Birney graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1810, where he studied law, and moved to Alabama, where he made lots of money […]

Anna Kingsley, Abolitionist, and Plantation owner born

This date in 1793 celebrates the birth of Anna Kingsley. She was a African plantation owner, abolitionist, and former slave in America.

The Cotton Gin is Patented

*On this date in 1794, Eli Whitney patented the Cotton Gin which he invented; (or did he?).

African slaves, because they were not citizens, could not register any invention with the patent office. Their owners could not register a slave’s invention either, since the law required that the patent be issued to the actual inventor. Consequently, any free person wanting to patent something could not acknowledge any contribution from a slave. Thus it was easy to steal a slave’s ideas and patent them.

Daniel Blue, Church Administrator born

*Daniel Blue was born on this date in 1796. He was a Black pioneer, former slave, and church administrator. From Monroe County, Kentucky, he was owned by Mason Doherty. Blue traveled by wagon train to California with John Doherty, brother of his former owner.  He arrived in Sacramento on September 2, 1849. According to the […]

Joseph Vann, Cherokee Enslaver born

*Joseph Vann was born on this date in 1798. He was a Native American Cherokee leader, businessman, slave owner, and planter. Joseph H. Vann was born in Spring Place, Georgia. He and his sister Mary were children of James Vann and Nannie Brown, both Cherokee of mixed blood with white-European ancestry. James Vann was a powerful chief […]

Stephen Bonga, Fur Trader, Clerk, and Interpreter born

*The birth of Stephen Bonga is celebrated on this date in 1799. He was a Black Ojibwe fur trader, clerk, and interpreter. Stephen Bonga was born at Park Point, opposite Wisconsin Point in Canal Park Duluth, Minnesota. He was the son of Pierre Bonga and his Ojibwe wife and the grandson of Jean & Jeannie Bonga, who […]

Jim Thompson, Trapper, and Translator born

*The birth of Jim Thompson is celebrated on this date in 1799.  He was a Black laborer, translator, and trapper in the Minnesota territories.   James Thompson was born a slave in Virginia.  His first trip into Minnesota territory came in 1827 with his owner, sutler John Culbertson, while he sold slave-produced merchandise to the First […]

Lewis Temple, Inventor born

This date marks the birth of Lewis Temple, a Black inventor, in 1800.

He was the creator of a whaling harpoon, known as “Temple’s Toggle” and “Temple’s Iron” that became the standard harpoon of the whaling industry in the middle of the 19th century. Lewis Temple was a skilled blacksmith, not a whaler. He was born a slave in Richmond, VA, and went to New Bedford, MA, in 1829. By 1836, Temple was one of the 315,000 free black people in the United States and a successful businessman who operated a whale craft shop on the New Bedford waterfront.

Wilson Ruffin Abbott, Businessman born

*The birth of Wilson Ruffin Abbott is celebrated on this date in c 1801.  He was a Black Canadian businessman.  From Richmond, VA, he was the son of a Scotch-Irish father and a free black mother.  Abbott was apprenticed as a carpenter as a teenager but left home at 15 to work as a steward […]

Robert Benjamin Lewis, Author and Inventor born

*The birth of Robert Benjamin Lewis is celebrated on this date in 1802. He was an African and Native American author, ethnologist, and inventor. He was born in the portion of Pittston, Maine, which later became the city of Gardiner. He was the eldest son of Matthias Lewis and Lucy (Stockbridge) Lewis. Matthias Lewis was either a […]

Wyndham Robertson, Slave Owner, and Politician born

*Wyndham Robertson was born on this date in 1803. He was a white-American politician, slave owner, and businessman. He was born near Manchester, Chesterfield County, Virginia, across the James River from Richmond. His parents were William Robertson and his wife Elizabeth Bolling, descended from Pocahontas and John Rolfe. His paternal grandfather Archibald Robertson emigrated from […]