Mather, like most other Christians of the time, also believed that racial equality before God did not demand equality on Earth–and, in particular, that it was wholly compatible with the institution of slavery.

If blackmail is ultimately about silence, and if silence cannot—by definition—be tracked, how is one to find signs that blackmail might be present?

Presented as part of the Special Issue: Money

Franklin had designed his currency to nurture Americans’ fortitude and resolve.

Oral tradition, nationalism, and the invention of history

“This flag is the first foreign banner that was ever carried through the great city.”

“It is worth considering why Americans have invested their flags with such importance and how the United States has become more saturated with patriotic color than any other country in the world. The comparative intensity of American loyalties is less noteworthy than the country’s fixation on a single symbol, which has come to be associated with a remarkably wide range of emotions.”

Beneath and between its profoundly conservative and aristocratic institutions, Paine’s Britain was a rude, irreverent place where power was fragmented and liberty celebrated.

Historians have tended to assume that enslaved people inevitably, and eagerly, resisted slavery in a quest for liberty. Yet in fact, in the Berbice rebellion, many enslaved people were reluctant to join.

It turns out that, in legal terms, the mystery of who found the broadside matters a lot less than who lost it.

“While bringing an incident of rape to legal officials was undoubtedly challenging for all victims, ironically, the cases that might be most successfully prosecuted were often the most difficult for victims to bring to court.”