Why Did Governments Compensate Slaveholders for Abolition?

Across the Americas, Emancipation Moved Slowly, and Profited Those Who Had Benefited from Slavery Most

The records are difficult to make out at first—blurred rows listing the names of slaveholders, enslaved individuals, and prices under the dim light of the microfilm reader. But once brought into focus, they reveal a harrowing moment: enslaved men and women being appraised for the last time in their lives, a valuation made with abolition in service of direct payments to their former owners. There’s the record listing the enslaved man Santiago Servacio, possessed by the mistress Tereza Castaño, whose value was set at 9,900 pesos. And there are those …

A man in Nuevo Quejá

What Does the U.S. Owe Climate Refugees?

Central Americans Are Fleeing an Ecological Disaster They Didn't Cause

Last fall, back-to-back major hurricanes, Eta and Iota, slammed into the Caribbean coast of Central America, creating storm surges and flooding from Belize to Panama. In parts of Honduras and …

Why the U.S. Is So Unfair to Central American Refugees

For Decades, American Foreign Policy Positions Pre-Determined Which Asylum Seekers Get Accepted or Rejected

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement on April 6, 2018 that all unauthorized border crossers will be federally prosecuted might sound like a reversal of U.S. policy. So might his …

Surviving Managua’s Government Crackdowns and Torrential Rains

A Refugee Couple Tends Their Garden in Nicaragua's Ruined Capital

On an overcast afternoon, Julio Baldelomar carries his metal ring of bagged chips past a new tourist attraction called Paseo Xolotlán, named for the nearly Los Angeles-sized lake on Managua, …

What’s Happening at the Border Is a Humanitarian Crisis, Not a Political One

The Thousands of Children Fleeing Central America Have Nothing to Do With Our Ongoing Debate Over Immigration

Less than 48 hours after the nation collectively chanted “USA!” for the national soccer team in the World Cup last week, a much smaller group of Americans in Murrieta, California, …

Genocide in Our Hemisphere

Why the Trial of Gen. Ríos Montt is Good for Guatemala and the World

On May 10, a Guatemalan court made history when it found General Efraín Ríos Montt guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity committed while he controlled the government in the …