Western African History

Learn about one of the largest people groups in Africa! The Yorubas are an interesting people with a rich cultural heritage that can be traced back to many centuries ago. The history of the Yorubas is one of Africa’s most researched and analyzed histories due to the high level of literacy among the Yoruba. They have a system of government that ensures the proper running of the community and the education of their young. The Yorubas are located in West Africa, with the majority of the population found in southwestern Nigeria.

Famed historian, university professor, and author of the groundbreaking "The Case for Colonialism" Bruce Gilley demonstrates that, contrary to modern presuppositions, German colonialism from its early roots to the mid-twentieth century served overall as a global force for good in the world, elevating the lives of its subjects and encouraging scientific development while allowing native cultures to flourish within its governance.

King Peggy chronicles the astonishing journey of an American secretary who suddenly finds herself king to a town of 7,000 souls on Ghana's central coast, half a world away. Upon arriving for her crowning ceremony in beautiful Otuam, she discovers the dire reality: there's no running water, no doctor, and no high school, and many of the village elders are stealing the town's funds. To make matters worse, her uncle (the late king) sits in a morgue awaiting a proper funeral in the royal palace, which is in ruins.

Business. Violence. Concerns about profits. Questions of conscience. This is the untold story of the dealings between a US tire giant and Liberia’s Charles Taylor, the man who would become the first head of state convicted of crimes against humanity since the Nazi era.

Brimming with rich, electrifying tales of the precious dye and its ancient heritage, Indigo is also the story of a personal quest: Catherine McKinley is the descendant of a clan of Scots who wore indigo tartan; Jewish "rag traders"; a Massachusetts textile factory owner; and African slaves - her ancestors were traded along the same Saharan routes as indigo, where a length of blue cotton could purchase human life.

Paul Jennings was born into slavery on the plantation of James and Dolley Madison in Virginia, later becoming part of the Madison household staff at the White House. Once finally emancipated by Senator Daniel Webster later in life, he would give an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former owner, money from his own pocket, write the first White House memoir, and see his sons fight with the Union Army in the Civil War.

German South West Africa: The History and Legacy of Germany’s Biggest African Colony chronicles the politics and conflicts that marked Germany’s efforts to colonize German South West Africa. You will learn about German South West Africa like never before.

As a young woman growing up in Africa, 17-year-old Leymah Gbowee was crushed by a savage war when violence reached her native Monrovia, depriving her of the education she yearned for and claiming the lives of relatives and friends. As war continued to ravage Liberia, Gbowee’s bitterness turned to rage-fueled action as she realized that women bear the greatest burden in prolonged conflicts.

I Hear My People Singing shines a light on a small but historic black neighborhood at the heart of one of the most elite and internationally renowned Ivy League towns - Princeton, New Jersey. The vivid first-person accounts of more than 50 black residents detail aspects of African American life throughout the 20th century.

The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s brig Black Joke was one of a handful of ships tasked with patrolling the western coast of Africa in an effort to end hundreds of years of global slave trading. Sailing after the spectacular fall of Napoleon in France, yet before the rise of Queen Victoria’s England, Black Joke was first a slaving vessel itself, and one with a lightning-fast reputation; only a lucky capture in 1827 allowed it to be repurposed by the Royal Navy to catch its former compatriots.

At a fort in Cabo Vermelho in 1779, Sisi, a West African girl with a gift for languages, works as a translator for her English enslavers. She was separated from her younger brother after they were kidnapped from their village by the ahosi, fierce female warriors who serve a neighboring king—and her guilt over her failure to protect him has never left her. When unexpected news reaches the fort, Sisi must find her voice, for her brother’s sake and for her own.

In 1875, Indian Territory, in what is now the state of Oklahoma, was a haven for thieves, swindlers, and murderers, all trying to escape the reach of the law. When President U.S. Grant appointed Judge Isaac Parker judge of the Western District of Arkansas, which included the territory, Parker was intent upon bringing fugitives to justice. He authorized U.S. Marshal James Fagan to hire 200 deputy marshals to help police the 4,500 square mile lawless territory. Among those deputies was Bass Reeves. Born a slave in 1838, Reeves had spent the Civil War as a runaway in Indian Territory, and ...

A Fatherless People: The Secret Story of How the Nigerians Missed the Road to the Promised Land tells the story of Nigeria from its early conceptualization by British colonialists in the aftermath of the abolition of the slave trade up to the present day. Comprehensive and compelling, it confirms Dele Ogun as one of the foremost experts on Africa in the modern era.

Explore captivating stories and facts about African American history! The history of African Americans is a long and tragic chronicle of events. The people who dared to stand up and speak out against the systemic cruelty and oppression were often brutally killed for their efforts. This has created a rich tapestry of defiant and courageous leaders and followers who have gradually pressed for the evolution of thought within the United States of America.

Born a slave, Bass Reeves never learned to read or write English, but he spoke six Native American languages and when he became one of the first African American deputy U.S. marshals west of the Mississippi River, he carved out a name for himself as one of the most feared lawmen in Indian Territory. Enjoy volume 3 of more adventures of the man known as the Indomitable Lawman. Fictional but historically accurate tales of a man who in a 30-year career brought in over 3,000 fugitives and despite dozens of gun battles with outlaws was never wounded.

What does it mean to be an American? The story of the African American past demonstrates the difficulty of answering this seemingly simple question. This book illuminates the US's core paradoxes, inviting profound questions about what it means to be an American, a citizen, and a human being. This book considers how, for centuries, African Americans have fought for what the black feminist intellectual Anna Julia Cooper called "the cause of freedom." It begins in Jamestown in 1619, when the first shipment of enslaved Africans arrived in that settlement.

The gripping story of 200 freed Mississippi slaves who sailed to Liberia to build a new colony - where the colonists' repression of the native tribes would beget a tragic cycle of violence. When a wealthy Mississippi cotton planter named Isaac Ross died in 1836, his will decreed that his plantation, Prospect Hill, should be liquidated and the proceeds from the sale be used to pay for his slaves' passage to the newly established colony of Liberia in western Africa.

Containing delightful stories from the Yoruba and other West African peoples, this book presents tales of courage and cunning, virtue and vice, and fortunes found and lost. Some of these stories draw upon actual historical persons and events, while others are purely fictional, but each story has something to delight any listener.

Born a slave, Bass Reeves never learned to read or write English, but he spoke six Native-American languages and could recall everything someone read to him. Thus, when he became a deputy U.S. marshal working in Indian Territory, he would memorize dozens of arrest Warrants and wanted posters. In thousands of arrests during his 30-year career, he never arrested the wrong person.In Volume 2 of Bass Reeves: The Indomitable Marshal, follow him in more of his amazing adventures.

When we hear of Jamaica or the Caribbean, we think of beautiful islands of paradise with sun, sea and sand, reggae music, cannabis, and "irie" people like Usain Bolt - people who are living out their best dreams, desires, and lives. But this book analyzes this motif, given the historical and current economic and political situation in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and the "Global South". In an attempt to escape the adverse realities of poverty, inequality, and injustice, the people of the Global South find themselves in north metropolises with very little agency.