Joshua Reed Giddings was an American attorney, politician and a prominent opponent of slavery. He represented Northeast Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1838 to 1859. He was at first a member of the Whig Party and was later a Republican, helping found the party.

The Creole mutiny, sometimes called the Creole case, was a slave revolt aboard the American slave ship Creole in November 1841, when the brig was seized by the 128 slaves who were aboard the ship when it reached Nassau in the British colony of the Bahamas where slavery was abolished. The brig was transporting enslaved people as part of the coastwise slave trade in the American South. It has been described as the "most successful slave revolt in US history". Two died in the revolt, an enslaved person and a member of the crew.