Knowledge hubsUnsilenced Archive
People & institutions
The people, companies and institutions that made empire work.
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People & institutions
The people, companies and institutions that made empire work.
- People & institutionsJallianwala Bagh massacre: Amritsar, 1919Evidence-led history of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar: Reginald Dyer’s shooting, disputed death tolls, official inquiries and memory.
- People & institutionsCecil Rhodes: Empire, Mining and Colonial RuleCecil Rhodes built wealth and political power through diamonds, racial rule and armed colonisation, leaving a contested legacy across southern Africa.
- People & institutionsChristopher Columbus: Voyages, Enslavement and Colonial RuleChristopher Columbus opened Caribbean colonization under Spain, imposing captivity, tribute and forced labor on Indigenous peoples after 1492.
- People & institutionsElmina Castle: Gold, Slavery and Colonial PowerElmina Castle history: Portuguese construction in 1482, Dutch conquest, Atlantic slave trafficking, British rule, surviving dungeons and memory.
- People & institutionsFrantz Fanon: Psychiatrist of Colonial ViolenceFrantz Fanon exposed colonialism's psychological violence, joined Algeria's liberation struggle, and shaped anticolonial and Black radical thought.
- People & institutionsHernán Cortés: Conquest, Colonial Rule and LegacyHernán Cortés led the Spanish and Indigenous coalition that destroyed the Mexica state in 1521, enabling colonial rule, forced labor and mass death.
- People & institutionsForce Publique: Leopold II’s Colonial Army in CongoHow Leopold II’s Force Publique enforced conquest and rubber extraction in Congo through hostage-taking, forced labor, mutilation, flogging and killing.
- People & institutionsKwame Nkrumah: Independence, Pan-Africanism and PowerKwame Nkrumah led Ghana to independence in 1957, promoted Pan-African unity and built a one-party state before his overthrow in the 1966 coup.
- People & institutionsLeopold II of Belgium: Rule, Atrocities and LegacyLeopold II ruled Belgium and privately controlled the Congo Free State, where forced labor, hostage-taking and mass death sustained rubber extraction.
- People & institutionsLothar von Trotha: Architect of Colonial ExterminationLothar von Trotha commanded Germany’s genocidal war against the Herero and Nama in 1904–1905, issuing an extermination order and enforcing desert expulsion.
- People & institutionsPatrice Lumumba: Independence, Overthrow and AssassinationPatrice Lumumba led independent Congo’s first government before Belgian-backed rivals killed him in 1961 amid Cold War intervention and secession.
- People & institutionsPotosí: Silver, Forced Labor and Spanish EmpirePotosí was the Spanish Empire’s great silver-mining center, built on Indigenous coerced labor, mercury refining and Cerro Rico’s immense mineral wealth.
- People & institutionsThe Berlin Conference, 1884–1885How the Berlin Conference created rules for European conquest in Africa, excluded Africans, and accelerated partition, forced labor, and colonial rule.
- People & institutionsCommonwealth of Nations: Empire, Power and LegacyThe Commonwealth of Nations explained: its imperial origins, institutions, membership, documented failures, defenses and neocolonial legacy today.
- People & institutionsDutch East India Company: Trade, War and Colonial RuleThe Dutch East India Company used monopoly, war, slavery and forced production to build an Asian empire from 1602 until its dissolution in 1799.
- People & institutionsThe East India Company: Trade, Conquest and Colonial RuleHow the East India Company used monopoly, armies, taxation and opium to conquer India, transfer wealth to Britain and establish colonial rule.
- People & institutionsInternational Monetary Fund: Power, Crisis and AusterityHow the IMF has governed financial crises since 1944 through unequal voting power, conditional loans, austerity programs and sovereign-debt surveillance.
- People & institutionsThe Sykes–Picot Agreement: Partition by EmpireHow Britain and France secretly negotiated the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement, divided Ottoman Arab lands, and shaped later mandates and borders.
- People & institutionsThomas Sankara: Revolution, Record and AssassinationThomas Sankara led Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987, pursuing vaccination, land reform and women’s emancipation before his assassination.
- People & institutionsToussaint Louverture: Haitian Revolutionary LeaderToussaint Louverture led the Haitian Revolution, defeated European armies, ended slavery in Saint-Domingue and died in French custody in 1803.
- People & institutionsWalter Rodney: Historian, Activist and AssassinationWalter Rodney explained: his scholarship on African underdevelopment, political organizing in Guyana, 1980 assassination, inquiry and legacy.
- People & institutionsWinston Churchill: Empire, War and Historical RecordWinston Churchill led Britain in wartime, defended empire and shaped policies implicated in colonial violence, including the 1943 Bengal famine.