Free Republic

William Ellison's fascinating story is told by Michael Johnson and James L. Roark in their book, Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South. At his death on the eve of the Civil War, Ellison was wealthier than nine out of 10 white people in South Carolina. He was born in 1790 as a slave on a plantation in the Fairfield District of the state, far up country from Charleston. In 1816, at the age of 26, he bought his own freedom, and soon bought his wife and their child. In 1822, he opened his own cotton...

Zainab Bangura urges Security Council to integrate protection of women into counter-terrorism agenda. UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Bangura, said Thursday, in a UN briefing to journalists, that sexual violence against females is being committed strategically and systematically by Islamic State operatives in Syria and Iraq on a regular basis, according to the UN News Center. “Women and girls are at risk and under assault at every point of their lives,” Bangura said of females living in the shadow of IS. The UN representative traveled to the Middle East mid-to-late April to meet with women who...

An NHS doctor enslaved a man in his home for 24 years after smuggling him into Britain as a child, a court heard yesterday. Emmanuel Edet demanded to be called ‘master’ as he beat his victim and subjected him to a ‘life of misery’, it was claimed. Edet, 60, and his wife Antan, 58, a senior hospital nurse, are accused of stripping Ofonime Inuk of his passport and making him work up to 17 hours a day.

In this final part of Taking Our Country Back, I ask what we can do to change the direction in which our country is headed. There are steps that can be taken involving both the individual and our culture. But nothing will change unless the American people understand that ignoring problems or pretending they will be resolved somehow at some point in the future are not options at this point. Low information voters must be made to get involved by understanding the dire consequences of remaining on the present path; that the ongoing, seemingly endless gravy train will soon end....

The Great Emancipator was almost the Great Colonizer: Newly released documents show that to a greater degree than historians had previously known, President Lincoln laid the groundwork to ship freed slaves overseas to help prevent racial strife in the U.S. Just after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Lincoln authorized plans to pursue a freedmen’s settlement in present-day Belize and another in Guyana, both colonial possessions of Great Britain at the time, said Phillip W. Magness, one of the researchers who uncovered the new documents.

1.) Dingy Harry Strikes Again Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid’s disdain for his Republican colleagues is on full display as he aims to force a vote on the nomination of Loretta Lynch as U.S. Attorney General. In fact, the former Majority Leader is threatening to hijack the Senate. Given the weakness of the Republican majority, why not! “I know parliamentary procedure around here and we’re going to put up with this for a little while longer, but not much,” Reid said in an interview on MSNBC. “Absolutely we can force votes. If we don’t get something done soon, I will...

A team of former Navy Seals and CIA operatives splash beer on their faces as they prepare to play the part of American sex tourists. They’ll have to maintain laser-sharp focus as they engage in negotiations with some of the world’s dirtiest criminals. One suspicious move or remark could put their whole team at risk and prevent the rescue of dozens of innocent children. This team, known as Operation Underground Railroad, works to prosecute child sex traffickers and to rescue the victims. Heading the team is Tim Ballard — a husband, a father of six children and a BYU alumnus....

If blacks lives have not improved under Democratic rule, then why not make a change? Why not take a chance and try a vote for a Republican. You might be surprised. Which political party really supported slavery and continue to further the cause of racism? Most people will immediately point their finger at Republicans and Conservatives. You know those evil old white folks who would rather see you encased in chains than an actual contributing citizen of the United States? Well if you believe this, then I have some swamp land in Florida I need to sell. If you look...

Charles Payne, host of Fox Business News' Making Money, said on Thursday: I think that there's going to be an official apology from the White House to slavery in America and then a major push to get cash, and I'm talking lots of cash. Many including those closest to President Obama will push him to make this happen. About reparations, Scottie Nell Hughes, Tea Party News Network director and a frequent Making Money guest, said: Sure, slavery was a horrible thing that happened, but this [reparations payments] is not going to help race relations in the United States today....

On Thursday’s broadcast of Fox Business Network’s “Making Money,” host Charles Payne made a bold prediction when he suggested that President Barack Obama would make a push for slavery reparations. “The news is a glimpse of much bigger news that is going to come from the White House, next year, I’m leaning towards,” Payne said during his “Payne’s Passion” segment. “I think that there’s going to be an official apology from the White House to slavery in America and then a major push to get cash, and I’m talking lots of cash.” “Many including those closest to President Obama will...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Kristin Carey.This Thursday is Emancipation Day. It’s the 153rd anniversary of the day President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, which freed the thousands of slaves who lived in Washington, D.C. That day in the midst of the Civil War marked the beginning of a great and dramatic change in our nation, which began with the capital—the heart of our nation—and slowly worked its way throughout the rest of the country. After President Lincoln signed the Act into law, an author of an editorial in a New York newspaper, The Anglo-African, joyfully...

Last night I stumbled across a collections of interviews conducted in the 1930s with blacks who had been born into slavery. They're kind of hard to read since they're written as the words were spoken with a heavy southern black accent. Most interesting to me is the lack of anger from these former slaves. In fact, some spoke quite fondly of their former owners. At worst, they spoke with indifference of their former owners. None of this matches the rage filled narrative of today with the endless claims of payment due.

Runaway Slave is an American independent political documentary hosted by Baptist minister C.L. Bryant. The film premiered in Los Angeles on January 13, 2012. The film follows Rev. C.L. Bryant as he travels across the United States and speaks with members of the African-American community, various conservative leaders, and different public faces about the belief that the African-American community is immersed in a welfare state and prevented from being successful on their own.[1] Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Beck, Herman Cain and Rep. Allen West are among the notable figures featured in the film who offer their insight and opinion into the...

Benjina, Indonesia ___ The Burmese slaves sat on the floor and stared through the rusty bars of their locked cage, hidden on a tiny tropical island thousands of miles from home. Just a few yards away, other workers loaded cargo ships with slave-caught seafood that clouds the supply networks of major supermarkets, restaurants and even pet stores in the United States. Here, in the Indonesian island village of Benjina and the surrounding waters, hundreds of trapped men represent one of the most desperate links criss-crossing between companies and countries in the seafood industry. This intricate web of connections separates the...

I am certain we never heard this in school. The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves. Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white....

Last Friday, I wrote about how the Democrats were putting abortion before helping victims of human trafficking. The Democrats incredible defense was that they had not read the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act to find the language inserted by the GOP relating to abortion. Now, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a Democrat from Minnesota and the bill’s leading Democratic sponsor, admits that it was her staff, not the Republicans, who should be blamed for the scuttling of the bill. Per the Daily Caller; Klobuchar admitted Tuesday one of her staffers did see the language weeks ago. The staffer “had seen...

The Democratic Party is the Party of Slavery. They are the party that decided to secede from the Union. They are the party that started a Civil War over the right to treat people as property. They are the party that, once their side lost the war, set up structures to keep American citizens from exercising their civil rights. And now, 150 years after the Civil War, the Democratic Party is at it again. Republicans were leading a bipartisan effort to stop slavery around the world. Human trafficking is a terrible issue. It affects children in this country and women...

As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to consider whether to overturn the marriage laws of all the states—as some activist federal judges have already done in some of the states--conservatives are naturally calling for judicial restraint. We must warn the court against another exercise of “raw judicial power” like that handed down with its infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. That cruel and unjust ruling is viewed as illegitimate by tens of millions of Americans. Young people, especially, are turning against abortion-on-demand. We see this in every pro-life march. And this public outcry is being translated into a bumper crop...

It has sold more than 20 million copies since it was written two centuries ago and has had generations of schoolgirls swooning over the ultimate romantic hero. But the great unspoken background of Jane Austen's world is that both Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley in Pride and Prejudice got rich from the slave trade, says author Joanna Trollope. The novelist, speaking at the Festival of Literature in Dubai, dispelled the myth about Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley being the perfect men and described the 'very dark underbelly' to Austen's books. She said: 'Why does Mr Bingley in Pride and Prejudice...