The Making of Today: Tacky’s War, April-June 1760

On Easter Monday, April 7 1760, across the plantations of Jamaica recently enslaved Africans rose up in rebellion. Although technically several rebellions in one the iconography of the war came to surround one figure – a former warlord in what is now Ghana called Tacky. While not the first enslaved uprising in the Caribbean, or

The Making of Today: Exploitation and Knowledge, The Founding of the British Museum, January-March 1759

Starting off with our first The Making of Today post of 2024 we are looking at one of the most monumental institutions in world history: the British Museum. From a pet project of physician and collector Hans Sloane to one of the most important museums in the world, the British Museum was a major turning

The Making of Today: Francois Mackandal and Enslaved Resistance in Saint-Domingue, January-March 1758

In 1791 enslaved Africans and Afro-Caribbean peoples rose up in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, modern Haiti. However, the famous revolution of 1791 was far from the first slave revolt in Saint-Domingue. One earlier revolt, planned by the enigmatic Francois Mackandal, was found out resulting in Mackandal’s brutal execution on January 20 1758. Today we’ll

The Making of Today: Slavery, Ghana, and the Royal African Company, April-June 1752

In 1750 the British parliament passed an act which would replace the Royal African Company with the African Company of Merchants. This formally happened in 1752, and I could not find the actual date of when this happened. I found a ledger detailing the African Company of Merchants’s investors from Liverpool which dated from June

The Making of Today: Slavery and Freedom in Colonial America, July-September 1750

We are three quarters of our way through 1750, and during the months of July to September two events happened in the history of slavery in the United States. On August 8 the Province of Georgia, in preparation for becoming a colony at the start of 1751, authorised the presence of slavery. Meanwhile, on September

The Making of Today: Introduction and the World in 1750

Welcome to the first post for The Making of Today! I specialise in Modern and Contemporary history, so I have wanting for a while to cover world history over this period in the same vein of the great YouTube channels The Great War, Timeghost History, and World War Two. Here we’ll cover the society, economy,

World History: The American Civil War and Reconstruction

When we looked at the end of slavery we briefly discussed the American Civil War. The Civil War has been regularly referred to as the ‘Second American Revolution’ for the immense cultural and political changes that came with the war. We also have to discuss the end of the war – a particular part of American

World History: The End of Slavery: Abolition, Rebellion, Successes, Failures

The symbol of abolition ‘Am I Not a Man and a Brother?’ Slavery has been a common stain on society throughout human history. Most societies which we have looked at on World History have practised slavery in some way or another, and the last time that we looked specifically at slavery was when we discussed

World History: The Haitian Revolution

A painting of the 1803 Battle of Vertieres On World History at the moment we’re looking at the Age of Revolution where from the late-1700s to the mid-1800s revolutions, (political, social, and economic), ended up drastically changing the world we live in. Today we’re looking at a unique revolution: the Haitian Revolution. This revolution saw

World History: The American Revolution

When completing his history of the world in The Age of Extremes Eric Hobsbawm placed the Age of Revolution as starting in 1776 with that of the American Revolution, (although he originally placed it in 1789 due to his series starting as a history of Europe). The American Revolution was one of the key events