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 Letter From Bogotá, Where Hunger Can Feel More Threatening Than the Virus | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

A Letter From Bogotá, Where Hunger Feels More Threatening Than the Virus

Delivering Fruit by Bicycle, an Expat Pedals Across the Sprawling Capital City and Tries to Imagine What the Future Will Look Like

Earlier in the spring, while riding my bike and delivering fruit around Bogotá, Colombia, I passed by dozens of customers lined up patiently, resignedly, outside a bank on a main …

The Story Behind Colombia’s October Surprise

Why the South American Nation's Peace Plebiscite Became a Self-Defeating Prophecy

Everything about Colombia’s plebiscite for peace was unexpected.

Not just the dramatic result—a rejection of the peace deal between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that …

Bogotá, My Home Away From Home

I Began My Trip to Colombia as a Teen Feeling Lost, and Ended With a New Sense of Belonging in the World

After finishing seventh grade, I found myself at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX, where my mother put me on a plane headed to Bogotá, Colombia.

It wasn’t as …