An enslaved child became one of Europe's first African philosophy professors
Brought from West Africa to Germany as a child around 1707, Anton Wilhelm Amo was raised by a noble family, educated at German universities, and in 1734 defended a philosophy dissertation arguing the mind cannot physically interact with the body — a direct challenge to Descartes. He went on to teach philosophy at Halle and Jena before returning to Axim, in modern Ghana, around 1747.