Slavery

A Japanese Ambassador’s Thoughts on Black Americans in 1872

The fall of the Japanese Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868 ushered in the Meiji era, a period of industrialization and modernization. During the reign of the Shogunate, Japan had a period of strict isolationism for 265 years, but the new Empire of Japan under Emperor Meiji sought to change course by finding inspiration from Western governments

John C. Calhoun’s Misunderstood Justification for American Slavery

It’s commonly believed that there were two arguments used to justify American slavery in the 19th century. The first argument was that slavery was certainly evil and immoral, but it was a necessary evil for the economic prosperity it brought. The second argument used to justify slavery, which is often overstated by academics, was that