Facts Not Fiction Slavery, the Slave Trade, & Abolition

Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida

Ron DeSantis's extremist, far-right "anti-woke" crusade against Black Studies education has resulted in sweeping changes to Florida's public school curricula. "The historical revisionism being employed [in Florida] has a singular goal – to erase the horrors of America’s racist past, legitimize far-right ideology and create easier pathways for racism to thrive." (Tayo Bero, The Guardian)

The 2023 Florida State Academic Standards for Social Sciences directs the following for middle school classes (see SS.68.AA.2.3, pg. 6):

• Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).
• Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

Image: Headline from the Miami Herald, dated August 16, 2023 -- 'Black history under attack.' Hundreds in Miami protest DeSantis' school standards, in response to new curriculum standards requiring that K-12 teachers instruct on the "benefits" of slavery.

Mom's for Liberty

This far-right organization was birthed in Southern Florida only a few years ago, but it now has chapters across the country. Comprised of mostly White women, Moms of Liberty has been likened to our generation's Daughters of the American Confederacy. Homegrown oppressors of racialized and gendered populations, they're a growing contingent driving educational inequity in the U.S. under the guise of liberty. Mothers they may be, but they are "constant gardeners" of white supremacy (source).

In their crusade against public education, organizers and chapter members across the US have infiltrated local school boards, flooded libraries with demands to remove books from shelves, and endorsed educational policies of far-right leaders like Ron DeSantis. Among the hoards of books Mom's for Liberty has contested, many are specifically about Black history and slavery.

In fact, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mom's for Liberty advocates that Making of America (1985) be used in history curriculum. The author of this book, W. Cleon Skousen, was a conspiracy theorist and John Birch Society supporter; He portrayed "slave owners as the 'worst victims of slavery' and claims that although the Founders wanted to free slaves, most slaves were unprepared for lives of freedom" (Southern Poverty Law Center).

Image: Illustration by Alex Nabaum

PragerU

DeSantis and far-right extremist politicians in Florida and across the US are parroting talking points spouted by Dennis Prager and Prager "University," his digital media platform. PragerU is not a legitimate educational institution or organization. Rather, "PragerU is an actual university in the same way Dr. Dre is an actual doctor." (Scott Maxwell, the Orlando Sentinel)

Since 2009, PragerU has been creating disinformation and targeting specific populations groups online to further extremist, far-right political agendas. Dog-whistle language now used in everyday conversation and the media -- like "critical race theory" and "woke" were first spread through PragerU videos, later to be picked up politicians like Ron DeSantis and later turned into policy with real-to-life impacts.

As of July 2023, PragerU is an approved educational vendor for the State of Florida. This means that PragerU's content can be used in Florida classrooms as educational content to support teaching and learning towards the fulfillment of the State's standards. On August 2, 2023, the Orlando Sentinel reported that "one video features a cartoon version of Christopher Columbus telling kids that, while slavery might not be great, 'being taken as a slave is better than being killed.'" The article further describes another video teaching students White men "led the world" in end slavery, thus touting white saviorism and erasing the histories of free and enslaved Black people as agents in their own liberation.

Suggested Reading: 

• Cowin, T. and Dickinson, R. (2023). CRT Moral Panic and PragerU’s role in it: reflections from researchers (2023). The Bell Ringer. Full-text online.

Image: Tweet by Philip Lewis (Huffington Post), describing one of PragerU's recent "educational" videos for school-age children featuring an animated Frederick Douglass, a formerly enslaved man and abolitionist, spreading historical disinformation.

John C. Calhoun

In an 1838 essay, Calhoun declared that "the negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world." According to Calhoun, conditions of enslavement were so luxurious that if the tables were turned, "white men...would die of ennui."

Beyond these claims, Calhoun asserted that the enslavement of Black people was the "most necessary of all human institutions." He perpetuated the false idea that white people were intellectually and culturally superior to other races. He claimed Black people needed "masters" and were unfit for skilled labor and industry.

George Fitzhugh

In this 1850 essay, Fitzhugh bluntly outlines his defenses of enslavement based on the ideology of white racial inferiority. His view was a paternalistic one, believing that Black people were intellectually inferior and incapable of self-government. Therefore, he believed slavery was the moral responsibility of white society. Fitzhugh continues his defense of American slavery as a humane and salvational project.:

He said, "We would remind those who deprecate and sympathize with negro slavery, that his slavery here relieves him from a far more cruel slavery in Africa, or from idolatry and cannibalism, and every brutal vice and crime that can disgrace humanity; and that it Christianizes, protects, supports and civilizes him."

Thomas R. Dew

In 1852, Dew gave a scriptural and Christian theological defense of the institution of slavery. In his essay, he also glories the character of Southern white enslavers, characterizing them as "noble," "humane," and "virtuous." Dew describes the experiences of enslaved people thusly:

"A merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe than the Negro slave of the United States. . . . Why, then, since the slave is happy, and happiness is the great object of all animated creation, should we endeavor to disturb his contentment by infusing into his mind a vain and indefinite desire for liberty—a something which he cannot comprehend, and which must inevitably dry up the very sources of his happiness."

Photo: Iron collar and key, mid-18th to 19th century. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. View original.

An underscoring theme used by pro-slavery advocates race, and specifically White ideologies of racial superiority. This led to the invention of "race science", in order for pro-slavery politicians to validate their pre-existing ideas about their own superiority. Methods used to construct and define race during the period of enslavement are now considered to be "pseudoscience.... presented as being derived from scientific experiments and methods while simultaneously failing to present evidence of its veracity." Fields of studies dedicated to race science emerged, includinganthropometry, craniology, craniometry, and phrenology.

The impacts of race science has lasted far beyond enslavement and colonization, providing significant contributions to the eugenics movement. Race science has re-emerged in recent decades, most notably with the publication of the Bell Curve (1994), by psychologists Richard J. Hernstein and Charles Murray.

Image (right): A “facial goniometer” depicted by Morton in Crania Americana, pg 252. Via Morton Cranial Collection, Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania.

Florida's new educational standards seeks to teach children that slavery wasn't so bad because at least enslaved people were taught useful skills by white people.

THE TRUTH IS.....

The continent of Africa was already populated by vast, rich civilizations of artisans, craftspeople, and skilled workers. African peoples mastered all manner of cultural production, including metallurgy and ceramics, carving and beading, weaving and textile production, architectural construction, fishing, diving and sailing, agriculture and animal husbandry, and so much more. African peoples were skilled in mathematics and linguistics. They had cultivated intricate religious, social, and political systems. African societies across the continent participated in global commerce via space trade routes.

African men, women, and children were stolen and trafficked from the continent. They were stolen because they were skilled and because those skills could be exploited for profit.

Suggested Readings:

• Bisson, & Vogel, J. O. (2000). Ancient African metallurgy : the socio-cultural context. AltaMira Press. Find this book in a library near you!
• General History of Africa. UNESCO. Online resource.
• Hilliard. (1998). Intellectual traditions of pre-colonial Africa. McGraw-Hill. Find this book in a library near you!
• Kusimba, Zhu, T., & Kiura, P. W. (Eds.). (2020). China and East Africa : ancient ties, contemporary flows. Lexington Books. Find this book in a library near you!
• Math in Ancient Africa. Mathematics of the African Diaspora. University of Buffalo. Online resource.

Image: Ivory pendant mask, Benin. 16th century. The British Museum. See original.

Many Africans died on the voyage across the Atlantic, so traders packed as many as 609 souls onto a single vessel. Shackled and chained in pairs. Crammed into tightly confined spaces. Illness and disease spread quickly across holding decks where captives were confined. They wouldn't have had access to fresh air or the ability to move around. Food and water were rationed and of poor quality, to weaken the captives and prevent mutiny on the high seas. (British Libary). 

According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, an estimated 10,653,598 people were forcibly loaded onto ships to be sold into slavery between 1514 and 1866. Of 34,448 recorded ship voyages, an estimated 1,455,981 people perished in transit.

Death at sea was not always the result of illness or disease. Some captives committed suicide as an act of resistance against enslavement. In some instances, traders would intentionally drown sick captives in order to cash in on insurance claims (Stevenson).

Death was such a common occurrence, it transformed shipping technology and later warranted a Parliamentary investigation. Those involved in the slave trade had a common goal: to keep captives alive. Their concern was not for the welfare of the enslaved people, however. The captives were viewed and treated as human cargo; keeping them alive was of financial interest.

According to Stevenson, "Vessels were designed and constructed specifically for the Trade. They were sleek, narrow vessels with special grates and port holes to direct air below deck. As the technology of slave vessels improved, so did the need for medical services aboard. Slave merchants began hiring carpenters and surgeons. The surgeons were primarily charged with minimizing the number of deaths at sea so as to preserve the ship’s cargo."

Ship surgeons tried novel ideas for keeping captives alive, such as improving the quality of food on board the ships. Additional attempts to curb mortality rates, such as actually treating the sick and preventing illness (Stevenson, pg. 30)

Sources:

• Diagram of the 'Brookes' slave ship, 1801. Learning Timelines: Sources from History. British Library.
• Robert (Rik) L. Stevenson Jr. (2018). Jumping Overboard: Examining Suicide, Resistance, and West African Cosmologies During the Middle Passage. Dissertation, Michigan State University. Read full-text online.

Image: Description of a slave ship, 1801. British Library. See original.

Examples of Rebellions, Revolts & Mutinies

BY LAND:

1570-1609: Gaspar Yagna's Rebellion -- Known as the Primer Libertador de America or “first liberator of the Americas,” Gaspar Yanga led one of colonial Mexico’s first successful slave uprisings and would go on to establish one of the America's earliest free black settlements (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1676-77: Bacon's Rebellion -- Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 was the last major uprising of enslaved blacks and white indentured servants in Colonial Virginia. One consequence of the failed rebellion was the intensification of African slavery and the social separation of blacks and whites in Virginia (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1712: New York City Uprising -- Between twenty-five and fifty blacks congregated at midnight in New York City, New York on April 6, 1712. With guns, swords and knives in hand, the slaves first set fire to an outhouse then fired shots at several white slave owners, who had raced to scene to fight the fire. By the end of the night, nine whites were killed and six whites were injured. The next day the governor of New York ordered the New York and Westchester militias to “drive the island.” With the exception of six rebels who committed suicide before they were apprehended, all of the rebels were captured and punished with ferocity ranging from being burned alive to being broken at the wheel (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1730; 1795-96: Maroon Wars -- The institution of slavery was threatened when large groups of Africans escaped to geographically secluded regions to form runaway slave communities, often referred to as maroon communities. Such communities were established throughout the Americas, particularly in the Caribbean and Brazil. They developed their own culture, government, trade, and military defense against their European and American oppressors. In short, they attempted to live as free people, beyond the sight and control of the planters or colonial officials (continue reading at Slavery and Remembrance).

1733-34: St. John Insurrection -- a small group of enslaved people entered the Danish West India Company’s fort in Coral Bay, St. John. These enslaved people arrived under the guise of a firewood delivery for the fort’s soldiers. In truth, they had hidden cane knives within the stacks of wood they carried. They took the soldiers at the fort by surprise, killing all the soldiers there but one. After taking the fort, these freedom fighters fired the fort’s cannon. The shots were a signal to St. John’s enslaved community that the insurrection was underway. The roots of the insurrection, however, stretched back long before that November morning (continue reading at the National Park Service).

1739: Stono Rebellion -- the British colony of South Carolina was shaken by a slave uprising that culminated with the death of sixty people. Led by an Angolan named Jemmy, a band of twenty slaves organized a rebellion on the banks of the Stono River. After breaking into Hutchinson’s store the band, now armed with guns, called for their liberty. As they marched, overseers were killed and reluctant slaves were forced to join the company. The band reached the Edisto River where white colonists descended upon them, killing most of the rebels. The survivors were sold off to the West Indies (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1741: New York City Conspiracy -- Between the months of March and April, ten fires blazed in the city, culminating with four fires on a single day in early April. A grand jury concluded that the fires were the work of black arsonists who had ties to a larger conspiracy to burn the city and murder all the white people. More than a hundred slaves were brought into the basement of the city hall on charges of burglary, arson and insurrection. Thirteen slaves were burned at the stake, and 70 others were sold into the backbreaking slavery of the Caribbean (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1760-61: Tacky's Rebellion -- an uprising among Jamaica Akan enslaved people from Ghana that occurred in St. Mary Parish, Jamaica, against the British from 1760 to 1761. Other ethnic groups from Ghana including the Akyem, Nzema, Fanti, and Ashanti took part in the rebellion. The rebellion was led by Tacky (also known as Takyi), who was from the Fante ethnic group. This war was one of the most significant slave rebellions in the Caribbean during the 18th century before the Haitian Revolution, which began three decades later (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1772-73; 1795-96: Carib Wars -- In the 17th century a group of so-called “Black Caribs,” also known as the Garifuna, was formed from intermarriage between the indigenous Caribs and more-recent African arrivals. The Africans were mainly slaves who had escaped from plantations in Barbados or were taken from raids on European plantations; other Africans came from a party of slaves who were shipwrecked in the Grenadines...The Caribs resisted frequent British, French, and Dutch attempts to settle in Saint Vincent, but they eventually allowed limited French settlement... In 1763, with the Treaty of Paris, Britain was granted control of Saint Vincent and settlement proceeded, although the Caribs refused to accept British sovereignty. In 1779 the island was seized by the French, but in 1783 it was restored to Britain under the Treaty of Versailles (continue reading at Encyclopedia Britannica).

1791-1804: Haitian Revolution -- The Haitian Revolution has often been described as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere. Enslaved people initiated the rebellion in 1791 and by 1803 they had succeeded in ending not just slavery but French control over the colony. The Haitian Revolution, however, was much more complex, consisting of several revolutions going on simultaneously. These revolutions were influenced by the French Revolution of 1789, which would come to represent a new concept of human rights, universal citizenship, and participation in government (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1800: Gabriel's Conspiracy -- a tremendous storm dropped heavy rain on central Virginia, swelling creeks and turning Richmond's dirt streets into quagmires. The storm aborted one of the most extensive slave plots in American history, a conspiracy known to hundreds of slaves throughout central Virginia. A charismatic blacksmith named Gabriel, who was owned by Thomas Prosser, of Henrico County, planned to enter Richmond with force, capture the Capitol and the Virginia State Armory, and hold Governor James Monroe hostage to bargain for freedom for Virginia's slaves. The intensity of the storm delayed the conspirators' planned gathering, and a few nervous slaves told their masters of the plot. The arrests of the conspirators, including Gabriel, led to trials in Richmond, Petersburg, Norfolk, and several surrounding counties. The conspirators were tried in courts of oyer and terminer, established under a 1692 statute in which testimony was heard by five justices, not a jury, with appeal only to the governor. Twenty-six slaves were hanged, and another apparently committed suicide in his cell. Several convicted slaves were sold and transported out of Virginia. Two slaves, who had informed their masters about the intended rebellion, received their freedom (continue reading at the Library of Virginia).

1811: Deslonde's or St. John's Parish Rebellion -- The rebels rose up on the plantation of Col. Manuel Andry (today the city of LaPlace) in St. John the Baptist Parish. They overwhelmed their oppressors. Armed with cane knives, hoes, clubs and a few guns, the rebels marched down the River Road toward New Orleans. Their slogan was “On to New Orleans” and “Freedom or Death,” which they shouted as they marched to New Orleans (continue reading at the Zinn Education Project).

1816: Bussa's Rebellion -- the largest slave revolt in the history of Barbados. The rebellion took its name from the African-born slave, Bussa, who led the uprising. The Bussa Rebellion was the first of the three major slave uprisings that took place in the British West Indies between the U.S. abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and general emancipation by the British in 1838 (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1822: Denmark Vesey’s Rebellion -- After one loyal slave told his master about a plot to seize the city of Charlestown, South Carolina and kill all the whites, local authorities exposed the most comprehensive slave plot in the history of the United States. More than 1,000 free and enslaved blacks intended to be a part of this uprising which was planned for sometime in July 1822. Denmark Vesey, a free black carpenter and Methodist leader, used his position to organize blacks, who were especially angry about the recent decision to suppress their African Church. South Carolina authorities moved swiftly once the plot was uncovered and Vesey and 36 of his co-conspirators were hanged after a dubious trial. Their executions were accompanied by a massive demonstration of support from defiant free and enslaved blacks that required local militia and Federal troops to restore order (continue reading at BlackPast.org). 

1823: Demerara Rebellion -- an uprising involving more than ten thousand enslaved people in the Crown colony of Demerara-Essequibo (now part of Guyana) on the coast of South America. The rebellion took place on August 18, 1823, and lasted two days. No particular incident sparked the rebellion; the enslaved simply grew tired of their servitude and sought to resist in the most direct way they could (continue reading at BlackPast.org). 

1831: Nat Turner's Rebellion -- Nat Turner believed he was called by God to deliver his people from slavery. Turner used preaching to convince people to join his revolt. On August 21, 1831, at 2:00 a.m., Turner and his followers started at his master’s house and killed the entire family. They marched throughout Southampton County in Virginia, killing at least 55 people until white authorities crushed the revolt (read more at the National Museum of African American History and Culture). 

1831-1833: The Baptist War -- The Baptist War, also known as the [Sam Sharpe or] Christmas Rebellion, was an eleven-day rebellion that mobilized as many as sixty thousand of Jamaica’s three hundred thousand slaves in 1831–1832. It was considered the largest slave rebellion in the British Caribbean. The name Christmas Rebellion came from the fact that the uprising began shortly after December 25. It was also called the Baptist War because many of the rebels were Baptist in faith (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

AT SEA:

1721: The Cape Coast, The Ferrers, The Robert, and The Elizabeth -- [Aboard The Robert, a ruler named Tomba]... convinced one male and one female slave to accompany him in his attempt to seize power of the ship. Their plot failed. After some deliberation and citing the slave’s potential economic value, Harding [the ship's captain] chose to spare Tomba. Moreover, he chose three other slaves to punish, which he did by killing the first and feeding him to the other two (via Buckwalter, pg 21).

1729: The Clare Galley -- [In 1729,] the slaves aboard the Clare Galley revolted near the Gold Coast and took control of the gunpowder and firearms. This was enough to convince the captain and crew that defeat was inevitable, ultimately forcing them to flea in a longboat. Exactly what occurred after this is subject to debate, however, we do know that some slaves found the freedom they were looking for and that the ship was eventually blown up (via Buckwalter, pg. 18).

1839: La Amistad -- occurred [aboard] the Spanish schooner La Amistad on July 2, 1839. The incident began... when Portuguese slave hunters illegally seized 53 Africans in Sierra Leone, a British colony, whom they intended to sell in the Spanish colony of Cuba. they would resell them (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

1841: The Creole -- an American slave revolt in November 1841 on board the Creole, a ship involved in the United States coastwise slave trade. As a consequence of the revolt, 128 enslaved people won their freedom in the Bahamas, then a British possession. Because of the number of people eventually freed, the Creole mutiny was the most successful slave revolt in US history (continue reading at BlackPast.org).

Additional Sources:

• Buckwalter, J. (2009). “A Master’s Care and Diligence Should Never be Over”: the British Government and Slave Shipboard Insurrections (Honor's Thesis). Eastern Illinois University. Link to full-text.
• Sharples, J.T. (2020). The World That Fear Made: Slave Revolts and Conspiracy Scares in Early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Find this book in a library near you! 

Image: The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia . . . . Richmond: Thomas R. Gray, 1832. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. See full-text original.

Methods of Resistance

Infanticide: Alice Clifton was an enslaved black woman in Pennsylvania. She was 17 years old, and she worked as a servant in a household for a white family - the Bartholomews - who were Philadelphia shopkeepers. And in 1787, she was arrested for killing her "bastard child." Her crime was infanticide (continue reading at NPR).

Poisoning enslavers: Prince was born in Guinea in 1724 and survived 11 decades of enslavement and incarceration in Connecticut. At the age of 87, Prince was accused of attempting to poisoning his new master, Captain George Starr. Prince was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1827, he was transferred to Wethersfield Prison and there he died in 1834. Read more about Prince Mortimer at BlackPast.org.

Literacy: Frederick Douglass was taught the alphabet in secret at age twelve by his master’s wife, Sophia Auld. As he grew older Douglass took charge of his own education, obtaining and reading newspapers and books in secret. He was often quoted asserting that “knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.” Douglass was one of the few literate slaves who regularly taught others how to read. Younger slaves frequently listened outside school houses where their masters’ children were learning (continue reading at the Smithsonian American Art Museum).

Escape: Ona Judge was the enslaved personal attendant of Martha Custis Washington when she ran away from the President’s House in Philadelphia in 1796. Born about 1773 at Mount Vernon, Judge began laboring in the mansion when she was ten years old. On May 21, 1796, she escaped from the [Presidential mansion in Philadelphia] while the family ate dinner and boarded a ship for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Washington’s agents tracked her there, twice speaking with her, in 1796 and 1799, but failing to apprehend her (from Encyclopedia of Virginia).

Noble Resistance: In My Bondage, My Freedom, Frederick Douglass writes of an enslaved mother named Nelly and her noble resistance to great physical and psychological torture. In the events Douglass describes, Nelly's flogging is witness by three of her children. Douglass writes, "unlike most of the slaves, [Nelly] seemed determined to make her whipping cost Mr. Sevier as much as possible." The overseer, Mr. Sevier, was "maddened by her resistance," rousing his temper to that of a "savage bull-dog." Douglass explains how he was expected to give enslaved women "genteel flogging[s], yet he "wielded the lash with all the hot zest of furious revenge." Even though the overseer had bloodied Nelly's body, Douglass observed that "she was not subdued." Soon after, the overseer fell sick and died. Continue reading.

More Methods of Everyday Resistance:

• Arson, destruction of property, and sabotaging crops
• Stealing tools, goods, livestock and food
• Breaking tools, working slowly, doing poor-quality work
• Feigning illness
• Refusing to use given names
• Maintaining ethnic identities and cultural practices in secret, including religion
• Creating and sharing music, folk tales, and other cultural productions, sometimes which had coded meanings
• Eavesdropping and spreading information clandestinely to others, even in other households or plantations

Sources:

• Find this book in a library near you!
• Slave Resistance. Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
• Slave Resistance. George Washington's Mount Vernon.
• Sweet, James H. Slave Resistance. National Humanities Center.

Additional Readings:

• Camp, S. (2004). Closer to freedom: enslaved women and everyday resistance in the plantation South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Find this book in a library near you!
• Caron, D. (2006). A century in captivity : the life and trials of Prince Mortimer, a Connecticut slave. Durham, N.H.: University of New Hampshire Press. Find this book in a library near you!
• Douglass, Frederick (1845). Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office. Read full-text online at Project Gutenberg!
• Douglass, Frederick (1855). My Bondage, My Freedom. Read full-text online at Project Gutenberg!

Image: Runaway Advertisement: Frederick Kitt, “Absconded from the household of the President of the United States, Oney Judge,” Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser, May 24, 1796. Encyclopedia Virginia. See original.

Resistance to systematic racial oppression towards liberation has become known as the Black radical tradition (McCoy), which transcends time and place -- across the African Diaspora and generations. The Black radical tradition of resistance which stretches back beyond the Transatlantic Slave system is were we find the roots of our present-day social justice movements.

The Akan concept of Sankofa teaches us the significance of history and learning from the past in order to create a new future -- "it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot" (source).

Histories of enslavement teach us uncomfortable truths of our national and global past. When we are made to forget the past, we cannot know if we are repeating the mistakes while going forward.

Image: Cast copper alloy figurative weight in the form of a bird looking backwards, also known as a sankofa. The bird's neck is twisted, and it has a hornbill and bent legs. Made by an Akan artist, 18th-19th century. Gift of Emil Arnold, National Museum of African Art Collection. See original.