Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute: History Now: African Immigration to Colonial America
An interesting essay on the forced migration of Africans to America by way of the Middle Passage. Read where the slaves were off-loaded, how the population of slaves increased, and the inhumanities inflicted on the slaves both on the...
Black Past
Black Past: Council on African Affairs
This encyclopedia article talks bout the Council on African Affairs which dealt with the correlation of the struggle of African Americans and the colonial problems in Africa. It was supported by many civil rights activists of the time.
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: African Writers and Black Thought in 18th Century Britain
This article describes how four writers, taken from Africa as children and sold into slavery, grew up to write works that challenged British ideas about race, called for African brotherhood, and demanded the abolition of the slave trade.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: The Two Williamsburgs
This lesson plan on daily life in Colonial Williamsburg challenges students to compare and contrast the lives of the African and European populations.
University of Oregon
Mapping History: African History
Interactive and animated maps and timelines of historical events and time periods in the history of Africa as it went through the colonial rule to reach independence.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: Redefining Family
This site from the Colonial Williamsburg Museum explores the different "families" of colonial Williamsburg. Content includes a focus on each cultural group: white, Native American, and black.
PBS
Pbs Africans in America: The Boston Massacre
From its series entitled "Africans in America," PBS offers a comprehensive overview of the Boston Massacre from the viewpoint of the poor, the oppressed, and enslaved or free Africans. The article highlights how these individuals were...
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: Meet the People
Meet the people of colonial Williamsburg! Content includes a focus on the life of African-Americans, colonial children, tradesmen, and elite members of society. Special focus is also placed on the lives of George & Martha Washington,...
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: Colonial Literature: Slave Narratives
This lesson focuses on Colonial period slave narratives including the autobiography, "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano" by Olaudah Equiano. Links are provided to the narrative and the website Africans in America:...
PBS
Pbs: Africans in America
PBS offers a four-part series on the plight of African Americans from slave days to the end of the Civil War. Resources such as interactive maps, a Resource Bank, and Teacher's Guide are available.
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of Natural History: African Voices: History
Trace Africa's history from the earliest humans to modern times using this thematic timeline. Learn about African trade, religion, empires, and technology. Vibrant pictures are included for each time period showcasing the African culture.
Library of Congress
Loc: African American Odyssey: Free Blacks in Antebellum Period
A site that chronicles through documents the accomplishments of African-Americans, both slave and free, from colonial times through the Civil War.
American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History: African Ethnography
The Anthropology Division's African collection is extensive in terms of geographic coverage. It includes North Africa, West Africa, and Madagascar, although its greatest concentration of material is from central and southern Africa. The...
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: Travel, Colonialism and Slavery
From Robinson Crusoe to the anti-slavery activism of Olaudah Equiano and the letters of Ignatius Sancho: explore a range of writing produced during an age of travel, trade and colonial conquest, in which Britain vastly expanded its...
Library of Congress
Loc: Mathematician and Astronomer Benjamin Banneker
Learn about the life and accomplishments of Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician and scientist. Also contains portraits and a map of New York, which can be enlarged for a closer view.
PBS
Africans in America: Africans in Court (In Colonial Virginia)
In this section of the PBS series, Africans in America, you can find four case summaries decided by colonial Virginia's courts concerning slaves petitioning for freedom.
PBS
Africans in America: Colonial Laws
Read some excerpts from original colonial laws concerning slaves.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: To Live Like a Slave
A great article written by a modern African American woman who reenacted her ancestor's life of slavery. Pictures and great insight into the life of a slave.
Digital History
Digital History: Slavery Takes Root in Colonial Virginia
Read about how the decrease in the availability of indentured servants led to a vast increase in the importation of African slaves into the southern colonies. Bacon's Rebellion even had an effect on the replacement of indentured servants...
The History Cat
The History Cat: History of Colonial America: Jamestown Colony
Describes the struggles of the Jamestown Colony to survive in its first years. Many died from disease and starvation, and things only began to turn when the colonists started to grow tobacco. The use of indentured servants and later,...
PBS
Africans in America: Phillis Wheatley
This website briefly describes the life of Phillis Wheatley, poetess and freed slave.
Black Past
Black Past: Phillis Wheatley
This on-line encyclopedia article gives information about Phillis Wheatley, the Boston slave who surprised colonial America with her poetry. She was the first African-American woman to have her work published.
University of California
The History Project: South African Diamond Mines, 1870s
The Dutch East India Company established a colony at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 and administered it until 1795 when it fell into British hands. The British returned Cape Colony to the Company for a three-year period before finally...
PBS
Africans in America: Margaret Washington on the Earliest Africans in Va.
In a brief answer, Margaret Washington, Assoc. Professor of History at Cornell University, discusses where the first Africans to colonial Virginia were from, who they were, and what it may have been like for them.