slavery | The Harriet Tubman Institute

Carlito Oliveira Junior

rebsl — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:54:48 +0000

PhD Candidate in History at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), CAPES scholarship holder, and Graduate Research Assistant based in Brazil at the Harriet Tubman Institute, 91��ɫ. His research focuses on Economic History and Business History, with particular emphasis on slavery, markets, wealth, credit, finance, economic networks, and regional economic development in nineteenth-century Brazil.

His doctoral research examines the formation of markets, wealth, and economic networks in the Recôncavo da Guanabara, with particular attention to the former Vila de Estrela in the Province of Rio de Janeiro. His broader research interests include the economic history of slavery, capital accumulation, financial institutions, business history, industrialization, and the relationship between enslaved labour, technology, markets, and modernization in Brazil and the Atlantic world.

He holds a Master's degree in Social History from the Federal Fluminense University (UFF) and a Bachelor's degree in History from the University of São Francisco (USF). He is also affiliated with research groups and scholarly networks in Economic and Business History in Brazil and internationally.

Keywords: Economic History, Business History, Slavery, Enslaved Labour, Internal Slave Trade, Markets, Wealth, Credit, Finance, Capital Accumulation, Economic Networks, Industrialization, Technology, Modernization, Nineteenth-Century Brazil, Atlantic History, Brazilian Economic History, History of Banking, Regional Economic Development

Sheba Abena Wiafe

rebsl — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:57:47 +0000

Sheba Abena Wiafe is currently completing her PhD at 91��ɫ in the Social and Political Thought Program. Her research focuses on investigating the migratory movements of African women to Europe against the histories of the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trade through Black critical theoretical and psychoanalytic approaches. Her written work is forthcoming with The Black Lexicon edited volume, and she is currently guest editing a special issue of SAQ focusing on the intellectual interventions of Christina Sharpe’s first monograph Monstrous Intimacies.

Keywords: Black Critical Theory, Migration, Slavery, Psychonanalysis, Continental Africa

Omolola Afolabi

rebsl — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 15:17:50 +0000

Omolola Afolabi is a Nigerian investigative journalist, researcher and research communicator whose work sits at the intersection of public-interest journalism, social justice and development. She reports on issues including gender, health, children’s rights, climate and environmental justice, technology and governance, with a focus on amplifying underreported experiences and holding institutions accountable.

She is a Pulitzer Center grantee and Community Partner of the Harriet Tubman Institute at 91��ɫ, and has worked with and contributed to platforms and organisations advancing investigative journalism, development communication and social impact. Her reporting has examined issues including environmental injustice, access to healthcare, misinformation and the rights and wellbeing of marginalised communities.

Beyond journalism, Omolola is developing Comms for Dev Africa, an initiative that helps African researchers, academics, and development practitioners communicate their research beyond academic audiences through accessible storytelling, journalism, and strategic research communication. Through this work, she is interested in strengthening connections between research, media, policy and communities.

Her broader interests include African and diasporic experiences, gender justice, mental health, disability and inclusion, migration, environmental justice, children's rights, and the communication of research for social change. She is particularly interested in collaborations that bridge academic knowledge and lived experience with public discourse and policy.

She holds a degree in English Education and a professional journalism qualification from Nigeria's National Broadcast Academy.

Keywords: Slavery, Heritage Sites, Preservation, Climate Change, Sand Mining, Collectuve Healing, Historical Site, Coastal Communities

Vanessa S. Oliveira

rebsl — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 18:49:43 +0000

Dr. Vanessa S. Oliveira is a specialist in African history and an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the Royal Military College of Canada. She teaches courses on early and modern Africa, European colonialism, research methodology, and women, gender and sexualities. Dr. Oliveira earned a PhD in history from 91��ɫ and was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the University of Toronto before joining RMC. Her book Slave Trade and Abolition: Gender, Commerce, and Economic Transition in Luanda was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in January 2021. She is the editor (with Paul E. Lovejoy) of Slavery, Memory and Citizenship (Africa World Press, 2016) and has published several articles and book chapters in English and Portuguese on women merchants, intercultural marriages and slavery in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Dr. Oliveira has conducted fieldwork and archival research in Angola, Portugal, Brazil and Canada. Her research interests include women merchants, slavery, slave trade, and the transition to the so-called legitimate commerce in tropical commodities in Angola.

Keywords: Slavery, Slave trade, Women merchants, Tropical commodities

Juanita De Barros

rebsl — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 19:31:38 +0000

Juanita De Barros is a Professor in the Department of History at McMaster University and the director of the Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice. She is the former president of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She did her PhD at 91��ɫ and was a DuBois-Mandela-Rodney fellow at the Department of Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan. She is the co-editor of two book series: “Histories of Slavery and its Global Legacies” (Cambridge University Press) and “Confronting Atrocity: Human Rights and Restorative Justice” (McGill-Queens University Press). Her research concentrates on the history of health, gender, and reproductive rights in the Caribbean within the context of imperialism and post-slavery societies. She has written two books, numerous articles and book chapters and has co-edited four essay collections. has co-edited three essay collections and two journal special issues. Her most recent publications are Reproducing the British Caribbean: Sex, Gender, and Population Politics after Slavery and the essay collection, Public Health and the Imperial Project. Her current research project explores the intersection of health and the law in the context of child incarceration in state institutions in the early 20th century Caribbean.

Paul E. Lovejoy

rebsl — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 19:53:44 +0000

As Distinguished Research Professor the Department of History, 91��ɫ, he was Founding Director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas at 91��ɫ and held the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History (2000-2015). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and was a member of Council of the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada, serving as Vice President and Acting President. He was a member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO “Slave Route” Project from 1996 to 2012, publishing several books in association with the Project. He was co-editor of the journal, African Economic History, for 37 years and continues as General Editor of The Harriet Tubman Series on the African Diaspora (Africa World Press), having published 40 books in the Series. In 2019, the Journal of Global Slavery and Brill Publishers established the Paul E. Lovejoy Prize, an Annual Award for Excellence and Originality in a Major Work on Global Slavery. In 2021, African Economic History published a special issue in his honor (Vol, 49, No. 1), and in 2024, Toyin Falola published Transformations in History: African Societies and Economies in The Works of Paul Lovejoy (Berlin and Leiden: De Gruyter Brill). He also received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Extraordinary Global Academic Leadership from Obafemi Awolowo University *the Distinguished Africanist Award of the African Studies Association in 2024. Lovejoy has published more than forty books, including Jihad in West Africa during the Age of Revolutions (1775-1850) (2016), Slavery in the Global Diaspora of Africa (2019), Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: An Enslaved Muslim of the Black Atlantic (2025), and Ecología, etnografía y comercio musulmán a través del Sahel: interacciones entre el Sahara, la sabana y el bosque en África Occidental (2025). He has co-edited Slavery, Resistance and Abolitions: A Pluralist Perspective (2019), The Atlantic and Africa: The Second Slavery and Beyond (2021), Regenerated Identities: Documenting African Lives (2022), and Boko Haram, Islamic Protest and National Security (2023). His various web-based projects include Equiano’s World: Gustavus Vassa and the Abolition of the Slave Trade (), which is the subject of his current research. His forthcoming book, Olaudah of Ikwuano: The True Origins of an African Abolitionist is being published by Princeton University Press.

Research keywords: African Economic History, Islamic Africa, slavery, biography, African diaspora

Fabio Silva Magalhaes

rebsl — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:33:52 +0000

A native of Bahia, Fabio Silva Magalhaes - also known as Fabio Cascadura - is a Brazilian-Canadian PhD candidate in History at 91��ɫ (2022–2027). His current research examines a case involving the capture of American schooners for irregular participation in the slave trade by the U.S.S. Ganges during the Quasi-War between the United States and France (1798–1801). The Ganges Affair represents the earliest known documented case of so-called “Liberated Africans.”

Fabio previously earned his Master’s degree at 91��ɫ, where he completed a biographical study of the slave trader and Luso-Brazilian military officer Caetano Maurício Machado (c. 1750–1807), focusing on his commercial activities in the Bight of Benin (Costa da Mina). His research interests lie in the economic and military history of the transatlantic slave trade, with additional engagement in the fields of anthropology and ethnology.
He is a Slavery North Graduate Fellow (University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Fall 2025) and has contributed to several Digital Humanities projects, including the Harriet Tubman Virtual Museum, Freedom Narratives, Slavery and Resistance in the News, 91��ɫ Masters and Servants, and Equiano’s World.

In addition to his academic work, Fabio has an extensive musical background as a composer, singer, instrumentalist, and music producer. He has led the band Cascadura for over uninterrupted 20 years. The band eventually reunites in Brazil.

Keywords: Africans, Sierra Leone, Freetown, transatlantic slave trade, slavery, Atlantic Abolitionism, U.S. Navy, Quasi War, Yoruba, Ouidah, Bahia, Brazil