Slavery Resource Guide

External Web Sites

Aboard the Underground Railroad: A National Register Travel Itinerary, from the National Park Service

Aboard the Underground Railroad, highlights sites where escaped slaves gained sanctuary on their journey north.

Abolition, from the The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

A special issue of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s online journal History Now, focusing on the abolitionist movement beginning in the 1830s and 1840s.

The African-American: A Journey from Slavery to Freedom, from Long Island University

The African-American: A Journey from Slavery to Freedom is an exhibit which shows America in crisis and how that point in time was resolved.

African American Voices, from Digital History Site

Forty-six slave narratives, dating from the late seventeenth century to Reconstruction. Includes descriptions of the slave trade, the middle passage, conditions of life and work, slave revolts and resistance, the Underground Railroad, and emancipation.

African-American Women: On-line Archival Collections, from Duke University

On-line archival collections featuring scanned pages and texts of the writings of African-American women.

Africans in America: America's Journey through Slavery, from PBS

The Africans in America Web site is a companion to Africans in America, a six-hour public television series. The site examines the economic and intellectual foundations of slavery in America and the global economy that prospered from it. And it reveals how the presence of African people and their struggle for freedom transformed America.

The Amistad Case, from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

The site includes portraits and narrative from the National Portrait Gallery.

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record, from the University of Virginia Library

The approximately 1,235 images in this collection have been selected from a wide range of sources, most of them dating from the period of slavery. This collection is envisioned as a tool and a resource that can be used by teachers, researchers, students, and the general public - in brief, anyone interested in the experiences of Africans who were enslaved and transported to the Americas and the lives of their descendants in the slave societies of the New World.

Changing Landscapes: Slave Housing at Monticello, from PBS

A fascinating look at changes in the conditions in which slaves lived in the early nineteenth century.

Death or Liberty: Gabriel, Nat Turner and John Brown, from the Library of Virginia

This site documents resistance to slavery, particularly highlighting the rebellions led by the three individuals named in the site's title.

Documenting the American South, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes ten thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.

Dred Scott Case, from the Washington University Library

A chronology and primary sources on this pivotal case.

Exploring Amistad, from the Mystic Seaport Museum

The site provides primary sources and teaching suggestions on the Amistad case, which sparked debate on the slave trade and slavery.

Geography of Slavery in Virginia, from the University of Virginia

The project presents full transcriptions and images of all runaway and captured ads for slaves and servants placed in Virginia newspapers from 1736 to 1790, and is in the process of compiling advertisements well into the nineteenth century. In addition, the project offers a number of other documents related to slaves, servants, and slaveholders, including court records, other newspaper notices, slaveholder correspondence, and assorted literature about slavery and indentured servitude.

H-Slavery Discussion Network

H-Slavery seeks to promote interaction and exchange among scholars engaged in research on slavery, the slave trade, abolition, and emancipation. It is dedicated to the dissemination of information about the history of slavery and antislavery in all time periods and parts of the world.

"I will be heard!" Abolitionism in America, from Cornell University Library

An online exhibition of documents on our country’s intellectual, moral, and political struggle to achieve freedom for all Americans. Features rare books, manuscripts, letters, photographs, and other materials from Cornell’s pre-eminent anti-slavery and Civil War collections. The exhibition explores the complex history of slavery, resistance, and abolition from the 1700s through 1865.

In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience

The Web site is organized around thirteen defining migrations that have formed and transformed African America and the nation. In addition, each migration has a bibliography (references) and a gateway of related Web sites. It presents more than 16,500 pages of texts, 8,300 illustrations, and more than 60 maps.

Race and Slavery Petitions Project, from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro

The Race and Slavery Petitions Project is designed to locate, collect, organize, and publish virtually all surviving legislative petitions, and a large selected group of county court petitions concerning slavery in the South. The project covers the period from the beginnings of statehood to the end of slavery (1770s to 1860s).

Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Emancipation, from the Smithsonian Institution

This project enables users to hear how former slaves describe in their own words what it was like to be a slave and to be free. The site includes a learning guide which is designed to enhance the users experience of reading and/or listening to the interviews, making it a more thought-provoking, informative, and personally enriching activity.

Slave Narratives, from the Museum of the African Diaspora

The museum presents excerpts from narratives by nine former slaves, with narration by Maya Angelou.

Third Person, First Person: Slave Voices from the Special Collections Library, Broadside Collection, Duke University

The exhibit Third Person, First Person: Slave Voices from the Special Collections Library probes the life experiences of American slaves from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth century, and examines the enterprise of recovering and preserving African American history of the period. The exhibit showcases the kinds of rare materials that under scrutiny reveal the ambitions, motivations, and struggles of people often presumed mute.

Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives

The documentary presents dramatic selections from the extensive Slave Narrative Collection through on-camera readings by over a dozen actors, interspersed with archival photographs, music, film and period images. The film was produced in association with the Library of Congress (home of the Slave Narrative Collection and other WPA collections), and is supported by a multifaceted HBO outreach effort.

Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, from the University of Virginia

The site provides primary sources, teaching suggestions, and historical analysis.

The Underground Railroad, from the National Geographic

The site provides a time line, classroom ideas, resources, and other activities for young people.

United States Historical Census Data Browser, from the University of Virginia Library

U.S. census data, 1790-1960; provides demographic information, including numbers of slaves, by state and county.

The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War

The Valley Project details life in two communities, one Northern and one Southern, from the time of John Brown's Raid through the era of Reconstruction. The project includes diaries and letters pertaining to slavery.