National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Freedom, Making of African American Identity: V. 1, 1500 1865
Twenty nine primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the qualities and conditions of African lives on the west coast before and during the European slave trade.
Auburn University
Auburn University: The Alabama Supreme Court on Slaves
This historical summary covers information on slaves during the mid-19th century in the following areas: Who were Slaves?, Rights and Powers of Ownership, Transfers of Slaves, Hiring of Slaves, Fugitive Slaves, Regulation of Slaves,...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: The Varieties of Slave Labor
Daniel C. Littlefield, Professor of History at University of South Carolina, explores how plantation or slave labor differed according to location and period.
University of Virginia
Virginia Center for Digital History: The Geography of Slavery in Virginia
A digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves in the period before the American Civil War. In addition, there are historical documents related to slavery. Gives the option of browsing or doing a detailed search....
University of Virginia
American Historical Review: The Differences Slavery Made
An in-depth scholarly investigation on the differences slavery made in the shaping of societies in the North and South by using two similar communities, one north and one south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
University of Nebraska
Railroads and the Making of Modern America: Slavery and Southern Railroads
Primary source materials that focus on how the railroad companies supported the slavery system through slave labor, slave ownership, and as a transportation system for the slave market in the South. Content includes contracts, company...
Understanding Slavery Initiative
Understanding Slavery Initiative: Trade and Commerce
The transatlantic slave trade lay at the heart of a complex global commerce system between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Learn about the clash over possessions, and the disputes over each others' presence in the seas.
![Understanding Slavery Initiative: Usi Resources: Unlocking Perceptions [Pdf] eBook](https://d15y2dacu3jp90.cloudfront.net/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "Understanding Slavery Initiative: Usi Resources: Unlocking Perceptions [Pdf] eBook")
Understanding Slavery Initiative
Understanding Slavery Initiative: Usi Resources: Unlocking Perceptions [Pdf]
This comprehensive guide for teaching the history and legacies of the transatlantic slave trade contains suggestions for educators such as using sensitive language in classrooms, unlocking common misconceptions, working with artifact...
Virginia History Series
Virginia History Series: Virginia Antebellum (1800 1860) [Pdf]
From 1800-1860, America went through rapid growth and development. View this slideshow to see pictures, charts, maps,primary source documents and a detailed timeline of Virginia during the Antebellum Era.
Understanding Slavery Initiative
Understanding Slavery: The Campaign for Abolition: Campaigning Against Slavery
Find out about the first mass human rights movement in history when African monarchs, enslaved Africans, freed slaves, and millions of other ordinary people campaigned against the slave trade and fought for the abolition of slavery.
Other
Dbq Theme: Slavery in the United States [Pdf]
A Grade 8 writing assignment on slavery. Students examine nine different primary source documents and answer questions about each. After completion, they would be asked to write an essay. This task uses the method called DBQ or...
Other
Historical Scene Investigation: Hsi: Antonio a Slave
Activity in which students play the role of detective and follow the life story of a slave to investigate changing slave laws and conditions in the 1600s. Through their investigation, students read and analyze the evidence in the form of...
The Henry Ford
Living Under Enslavement: African Americans on Hermitage Plantation
This virtual tour of the slave quarters of the Hermitage Plantation tells of the family life of slaves, their skills, and their resistance to the institution of slavery.
PBS
Pbs: Literature & Life: From Freedom to Slavery
Some of the African-American writers and poets who spoke out eloquently about their experiences of slavery in the 1700s and 1800s are featured in this section of Literature & Life. Read powerful first-person accounts of Harriet...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: Slavery in the American South
Article and activity in which students explore the distressful conditions of slavery in the South, answer questions based on the reading, and then participate in writing first person slave narratives for class discussion.
OpenStax
Open Stax: African Americans in the Antebellum United States
This section of a chapter on "The Antebellum South" discusses the similarities and differences in the lives of slaves and free blacks and describes the independent culture and customs that slaves developed.
Other
Thomas Jefferson Foundation: Jefferson Monticello: Plantation and Slavery
Click through this site to see who lived at Monticello, what the plantation looked like, and how it operated. Learn about the people who lived there and about the lives of slaves.
Library of Congress
Loc: Slaves and the Courts, 1740 1860
This collection of historical primary documents tells the story of the trials, cases, and correspondence of slaves and the courts of the United States and Great Britain.
Library of Congress
Loc: Slaves and the Courts
Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860 contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and...
Google Cultural Institute
Google Cultural Institute: A Slave Pen Journey
Take an online journey through a Kentucky slave pen in the 1830s.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute: History Now: Enslaved African Americans and Expressions of Freedom
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students will examine African American slave spirituals, a painting, and a personal narrative to analyze the underlying messages of these materials.
University of North Carolina
Documenting the American South: Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave
UNC's resource provides links to download the entire text of "Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave," which was published in 1838. Included are 1838 articles from "The Liberator," in which the authenticity of this narrative is...
New York Times
New York Times: Insurance Policies on Slaves: New York Life's Complicated Past
[Free Registration/Login Required] This article describes the controversial history of New York Life Insurance. In 1846 the company began selling insurance policies to slave owners in the South that guaranteed compensation if a slave...
University of North Carolina
Documenting the American South: Summary of Twelve Years a Slave
Read a summary of the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold to a plantation in Louisiana, where he worked as a slave for twelve years. Hyperlink to the text of Northup's book, Twelve Years a Slave.