PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: The Slave Experience: Living Conditions
This PBS series site reveals the diverse circumstances and living conditions experienced by slaves and indentured servants in America by reading documents dating to the Colonial, Antebellum, and Reconstruction periods.
Digital History
Digital History: From Slave Labor to Free Labor
The most difficult task confronting many Southerners during Reconstruction was devising a new system of labor to replace the shattered world of slavery. Learn how plantation owners and freed slaves adapted to this massive shift in the...
A&E Television
History.com: Black History Milestones
A detailed account of the history of African Americans is presented in this article. Divided by main topics or periods of time, the coming of slavery to America is the first focus. Followed by plantation life and escapes to freedom and...
Digital History
Digital History: Pre Civil War South
A comprehensive look at the economy of the South and the changes brought by the cotton gin. Read through five pages that discuss the economy, the tradition of the plantation, and the sectionalism that arises in this time period.
Other
Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Ethnic Groups Africian Americans
Perhaps one of the largest ethinc/cultural group to inhabit Arkansas are the African Americans. Follow their first arrival as slaves working the plantations through all the years toward emancipation, and into present times. Highly...
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: Ap Us History: Prelude to War
AP U.S. History learning module covers Manifest Destiny, conflict over slavery and events leading to the Civil War.
Stanford University
Beyond the Bubble: Slave Quarters
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students examine a photograph of former slave quarters in Georgia and answer questions about the living conditions of slaves. They will also observe how the fact that the photograph was taken decades...
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.
Other
Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Cotton Industry
Cotton has long been an important and successful part of the economy and history of Arkansas. This is an overview of the cotton industry from the early days of plantations, slaves, immigrant workers to today's productive source of...
Curated OER
Virginia Tobacco Plantation
Four accounts of the complex power relationships between slaves and slave holders within English colonies in Barbados, Virginia and Pennsylvania, as well as documents about slave revolts and anti-slavery agitation.
University of North Carolina
Documenting the South: Jacob Stroyer, 1849 1908: My Life in the South
This site, from the University of North Carolina, provides the full text of "My Life in the South," the autobiography of an emancipated slave, Jacob Stroyer(1849-1908). The text is complete and in-depth with a full introduction and...
Other
United States History: Ch. 3 Sec. 1: The Southern Colonies [Pdf]
A chapter from a history text that looks at the development of the Southern Colonies. It discusses the Southern agricultural economy that relied on slave labor, tobacco as a cash crop, Southern society, indentured servitude, Bacon's...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Labor, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Selections of original accounts either written during slavery or recorded in the 1930s that depict work as a plantation laborer, house servant, shipyard worker or boatman.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Cotton and African American Life
But for the invention of the cotton gin, slavery perhaps would have died out in the United States in the early 19th century. Read about why technological advances caused the spread of slavery in the South and read about how slaves clung...
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1800 1848: The Cotton Kingdom
During the first half of the nineteenth century, demand for cotton led to the expansion of plantation slavery. By 1850, enslaved people were growing cotton from South Carolina to Texas.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: The Peculiar Institution
A very brief look at the "Peculiar Institution" of slavery in the South before the Civil War. Read about how slavery became so entrenced and why it drove a wedge between the North and South.
University of Groningen
American History: Essays: Anglo Amer. Colonization in Texas: Texas 1836 1848
A brief look at the declaration of independence from Mexico by Texas in 1836, the removal of restrictions on slavery, and how this dramatically increased the population and led to a much greater reliance on the cotton industry in the...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Enslavement, Making of African American Identity: V. 1, 1500 1865
Twenty-eight primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore plantation life, the qualities and conditions of slavery, work, and resistance to oppression.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Religion, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
A series of songs, narratives, and memoirs that examine the spiritual beliefs of and experiences with religion among slaves in southern plantation communities.
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Slave Life and the Underground Railroad
A brief summary of the history of African American slavery and the Underground Railroad. Activities and books pertaining to slave life, plantations, and the Underground Railroad are suggested.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: An Enslaved Person's Life, Making of African American Identity
Various photographs of slaves from the pre-Civil War era, an autobiographical narrative of slavery, and three accounts recorded in the 1930s of the lives and conditions of former slaves are included in this large set of information...
Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press.
New Georgia Encyclopedia: The Butler Family
An entry on the Butler family who owned large plantations on the Sea Islands. The "patriarch" was Pierce Butler who also served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.
Library of Congress
Loc: America's Story: South Carolina
Explore how South Carolina moved from a "plantation culture" in 1670 to a "growing research center and banking state" today. South Carolina played a major role in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: The Rise of Consumerism
With the increasing variety in clothes, food, and household items, shopping became an important cultural activity in the 18th century. This article describes buying and selling during this period and explains the connection between many...