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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Buying Freedom, Making of African American Identity: V. 1

For Students 9th - 10th
Narratives from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries depicting the struggle by blacks to purchase their own freedom and the impediments they faced.
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Graphic
Digital History

Digital History: Photograph Album With Cyanotypes

For Students 9th - 10th
Read a brief Digital History description of the Calhoun Industrial School in Alabama, a school in the 19th century that provided industrial education to freed slaves and others. Following the description is an impressive collection of...
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Website
Danuta Bois

Distinguished Women of Past and Present: Bridget "Biddy" Mason

For Students 3rd - 8th
Read the biography of Biddy Mason (1818-1891 CE), a tremendously hard worker who fought to gain her freedom from slavery and eventually became the first black woman to own land in Los Angeles.
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Website
Digital History

Digital History: The Problem of Reconstruction [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
How does a country put itself back together after a civil war? Read about the problems with the destruction of the Southern economy and land, the recognition of former slaves as freedmen, and the ways to bring the Southern states back...
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Website
Internet History Sourcebooks Project

Fordham University: Medieval Sourcebook: Race and Slavery in the Middle East

For Students 9th - 10th
This site from the Modern History Sourcebook of Fordham University provides a thorough discussion of the existence of slavery in early times giving the types of people who were taken as slaves and the work they performed. There were also...
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Handout
Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press.

New Georgia Encyclopedia: Reconstruction in Georgia

For Students 9th - 10th
After the Civil War ended, Georgia was in a state of chaos. Learn all about the Reconstruction in Georgia from 1865-1871 and how it changed the state politically, socially, and economically.
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Website
Then Again

Then Again: Web Chron: Liberia Is Founded by Freed Slaves

For Students 9th - 10th
Read how the nation of Liberia was founded by freed slaves as a result of the end of the transatlantic slave trade and the efforts of the American Colonization Society (ACS).
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Article
PBS

Africans in America: Lucy Terry Prince: Freed Slave and Poet

For Students 9th - 10th
This website describes the life of Lucy Terry Prince, first female African American poet. She obtained her freedom by marrying a wealthy free black man who purchased her freedom.
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Activity
PBS

Pbs Africans in America: Venture Smith

For Students 9th - 10th
This website briefly describes the life of a captured slave, Venture Smith. He is a legend for his size and his feat of buying his and his family's freedom.
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Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Revolutionary Changes and Limitations: Slavery

For Students 5th - 8th
See how the conflicting ideas of land ownership and person ownership flew in the face of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the ideals of the Revolutionary War.
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Lesson Plan
US National Archives

Docsteach: How Effective Were the Efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau?

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In this activity, students will analyze documents from the War Department's Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands - better known as the Freedmen's Bureau - that Congress established on March 3, 1865, as the Civil War was...
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Article
Other

Wither Liberia? Civil War Emancipation and Freedmen Resettlement in West Africa

For Students 9th - 10th
An informative article on efforts during Abraham Lincoln's administration to resettle freedmen to West Africa. (Published: 11/11/2012)
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Handout
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: Independence for Liberia

For Students 3rd - 8th
The story of how Joseph Jenkins Roberts, an African American from Virginia, developed Liberia into an independent country.
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Handout
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: 14th Amendment to the Constitution

For Students 3rd - 8th
After the Civil War, the 14th amendment granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States. This included former slaves. Learn about the protections this amendment offers to citizens, including those who were once...
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Primary
University of Virginia

Electronic Text Center: Liberian Letters

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection of letters from former Virginia slaves who emigrated to Liberia.
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Handout
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: Juneteenth Celebration

For Students 3rd - 8th
This resource is a brief article about Juneteenth, or Emancipation Day, which celebrates the day when Union soldiers arrived in Texas and spread the word that slaves were free.
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Handout
Other

History's Women: Sojourner Truth, Abolitionist Suffragist

For Students 9th - 10th
This site provides a biography of African American Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 in upstate New York.
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Article
Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia Britannica: 300 Women Who Changed History: Sojourner Truth

For Students 9th - 10th
Encyclopedia Britannica provides a biography of Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), a woman whose "Visions," led her on a crusade to preach of God's goodness, of the abolitionist movement, and of the women's rights movement.
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Handout
Black Past

Black Past: Davis Bend, Mississippi

For Students 9th - 10th
This is an encyclopedia article which tells about an attempt to form an all black cooperative town in Mississippi after the Civil War.
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Primary
Georgetown University

Georgetown: Georgetown Slavery Archive Slavery in the Maryland Province

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a collection of documents related to slavery in the Maryland Province.
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Primary
Digital Public Library of America

Dpla: The Freedmen's Bureau

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This collection of documents, images, and readings from the era give an overview of the work done by the Freedmen's Bureau and the racial and political struggles the agency faced during the Reconstruction Era. Includes a teaching guide.
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Handout
This Nation

This nation.com: "Emancipation Proclamation" Abraham Lincoln

For Students 9th - 10th
This Nation site provides the full text of President Abraham Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" which freed slaves.
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Primary
Chicago History Museum

Encyclopedia of Chicago: Certificates of Freedom 1844

For Students 9th - 10th
View authentic certificates of freedom for John and Mary Jones issued in 1844.
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Handout
University of Iowa

University of Iowa: Arts and Life in Africa: Sierra Leone

For Students 6th - 8th
A record of statistics concerning modern day Sierra Leone, up to 1998. Scroll down to history section to see a brief, but informative description of pre-colonial and post-colonial history for Sierra Leone.