The Black Researcher

The Participation of African People in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Slavery is a very serious and delicate topic for anyone to research. To research and to present on the history of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is to undertake a task that can lead to a better understanding of the present situation facing the descendants of its victims and benefactors in our world today. But if a careful effort is not taken in this process, this same work can lead to negative consequences in our society. It can potentially spurn alternate histories, adding to the cadre of myths that are often presented as fact. A reckless approach to research on the history of the slave trade can make villains out of heroes and heroes out of villains. From Hull Maritime Museum, Featured in  A Pictorial History of the Slave Trade (1971) by Isabelle Aguet (Source: Slavery Images ) In the "reflections" chapter of his massive 900-page  Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade   (1997), the culmination of many ye...

  The Ukrainian Fortress City Built  By A Black Man Left: Plan of the Kherson Fortress in 1792 (Source: Wikipedia Commons ); Right: Portrait of General I.A.Hannibal - founder of the city of Kherson and the fortress  (Credit:  Kherson Guide ) Many students of Black history are familiar with the name of Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), the astronomical genius of African descent who contributed to the earliest survey for the construction of the U.S. capital in Washington, D.C. But very few are aware that there was another Black man who supervised a similar project for a city in Europe.  View of Kherson F. Ya. Alekseev (1755-1824) (Credit: Kherson Guide ) Kherson, a significant city in Southern Ukraine, was designed and co-founded by the eminent Russian general Ivan Gannibal (1735-1801). Gannibal, it seems, began his work shortly after the city was founded by General Grigory Potemkin, a favorite of Empress Catherine II. Inside the fortress walls, Gannibal include...

 The African Governor and Guardian of Estonia's Capital City Left: Portrait of Gannibal from Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine, Volume 8 (1888); Right: Engraving of Reval (Tallinn) in 1867 by Wilhelm Siegfried Stavenhagen (Source: Wikipedia Commons ) Pictured below is the house where the African prince and Russian nobleman Abraham Gannibal (c. 1696-1781) lived as the chief commandant of what is now Estonia's largest city, Tallinn. Revel (Tallinn's old name) and its fortress were established at the end of the 10th century, then taken by the Danes in the early 13th century. Later, Reval was ruled by the Germans and Swedes. Reval was then conquered by Russian emperor Peter the Great in 1710. For 10 years - from 1742 to 1752 - Gannibal served as the de-facto governor of that historic city. House of the military commander of Reval (now Tallinn) Photo by Wikipedia user Elin Galtung Lihaug The photo above was taken in 2003. As these photos show, the house received a compl...