National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Canada
Descriptions of fugitive slave communities in Canada and comments from those who escaped to these locations as well as welcoming statements to fugitive slaves in the mid-nineteenth century.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Driver, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Unusual letters from black slave drivers, and in one case, letters in reply from the white slave owner, about crops, labor, and conditions on plantations in the mid-1850s.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: Settlers, Slaves and Servants
Men and women with little active interest in a new life in America were often induced to make the move to the New World by the skillful persuasion of promoters. William Penn, for example, publicized the opportunities awaiting newcomers...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Africans Ii, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Three illustrations and five documents about slave codes, master-slave power dynamics, and free blacks within French and Spanish settlements of the Caribbean.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Africans I, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
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.
BBC
Bbc: Slave Island New York's Hidden History
A fascinating article that examines the discovery in 1991 of a large Negro burial ground in lower Manhatten. The African American cemetery was used during the 18th century. Archived.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: Cotton Gin and the Expansion of Slavery
The sources in this primary set document the invention of the cotton gin and the expansion of slavery. Includes teaching guide.
Cornell University
Cornell University: Library: I Will Be Heard: A Slave's Life
A brief look at how slavery in America was tied to the crops grown in the South. See how the need for skilled workers was decreased and the use of unskilled slaves increased with the introduction of the cotton gin.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: Colonial African American Life
Provides a few statistics on slaves in Maryland and Virginia and then contrasts the lives of field hand vs household or urban slaves.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beloved is a novel inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner, who escaped with her family from slavery in Kentucky to freedom in Ohio in 1856.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave Trade, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
A West African map and three accounts of the development of slave acquisition display the process and the brutality of the Atlantic slave trade.
Read Works
Read Works: u.s. Presidents Abraham Lincoln
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: American Civil War: African American Lives
Collection of digital resources gathered from public libraries, archives, and museums about African American lives in the Civil War. Here you can discover the variety of African American experiences of the Civil War.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The Abolitionists
Outline of the beginning of the Abolitionist Movement in a pre-Civil War America as part of the sectional conflict between the North and South.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Free Born
A journal, an autobiography, and selections from narratives about the conditions experienced by free-born African Americans in the nineteenth century. They ask such questions as: How did African Americans construct identity in antebellum...
Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago: Art Access: American Art to 1900
Study works of American art from the eighteen and nineteenth centuries. Works in a variety of media, including the decorative arts, are represented as are pieces by some of America's best-known artists: Copley, Church, Homer, and...
McGraw Hill
Mc Graw Hill: Colonial Economy and Patterns of Society
Although tied to pages from a specific text, these AP study questions allow anyone to consider aspects of colonial economics. (Answers to some of the questions are located at the following link:...
PBS
Pbs: Africans in America: Historical Document: Banneker's Letter to Jefferson
Explanation of the occasion for the writing of a letter to Thomas Jefferson by Benjamin Banneker that expresses Banneker's views on slavery and his hopes for Jefferson's support to end slavery in America. With a link to a transcript of...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Scientific American: Unearthing Secret America: Nutrient Depletion
Investigate the change in American society and slavery with the advent of the agricultural innovation of crop rotation. Observe nutrient depletion as you germinate and grow nutrient-demanding seedlings.
Penguin Publishing
Penguin Random House: Anthony Burns: The Defeat & Triumph of a Fugitive Slave
Discussion ideas and interdisicplinary connections are the most useful parts of this teachers' guide for Virigina Hamilton's biography of escaped slave, Anthony Burns. It includes a brief summary of the book and information about the...
PBS
Pbs: Cet: Africans in America: William Lloyd Garrison
Photo and biographical text included in this PBS site on William Lloyd Garrison. Part of a larger site linked to the series "Africans in America". Click on Teacher's Guide for teacher resources.
PBS
Africans in America: Slave Narratives and Uncle Tom's Cabin
Slave narratives were an effective tool to spread information about what slavery was really like. Perhaps the most widely read literature about slavery happened to be written by a white woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Read about the impact...
Digital History
Digital History: Compensation for Slavery [Pdf]
Read the arguments for and against giving reparations to today's African Americans to atone for the slavery their ancestors endured in 18th and 19th century America. Also included are results from a poll conducted by the magazine, Black...
PBS
Africans in America: Founding of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society
A detailed account of the founding of the first Quaker abolitionist society in 1775 in Philadelphia by Anthony Benezet. The society became known as "PAS" or "Pennsylvania Abolition Society".