From the mid 18th century, Africans and people of African descent - many of them former slaves - began to write down their stories. This article describes these writings and assesses their role in the abolition of slavery.

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...

It is fairly well-accepted that American slavery of the 19th century developed from three distinct traditions of slavery that were mutated into a new, racialized, institutionalized form: European indentured servitude, West African...

This site is provided for by PBS. In order to receive insurance money, a captain ordered 132 slaves thrown overboard alive. The case went to court, and a landmark decision was made that the Africans on the ship were actually people.

A description of the Middle Passage, the leg of the triangular trade that brought slaves from Africa to America. Read descriptions of the way slaves were transported in the ships across the ocean.

The many groups who have settled in Texas are listed, beginning 40,000 years ago. There is a list of the Native American groups, then the successive groups of immigrants from numerous European countries, the African Americans who were...

Read about the transit of Africans from their homeland to the American British colonies to work on plantations in the south as part of leg in the triangular trade.

Part of a detailed PBS site which describes "the history of racial slavery in the United States, this section focuses on slavery from 1750-1805.

From a larger site from PBS' Africans in America, blurb about Olaudah Equiano and his autobiography with a link to text of this historical document.

Find out about the disparity between the castle-like headquarters of slave forts and the deplorable conditions in which enslaved Africans lived while waiting to be transported by slave ship to the Americas.

A lesson plan unit on the people and movements that fought to abolish slavery. Looks at the Triangular Trade, and at the Underground Railroad and famous abolitionists. Includes a play about emancipation, a black history rap and a trivia...

Focuses on slavery in North America, the worry about uprisings, and slavery's economic impact. Links to related information.

After an introduction to slavery in the 1800s and the role Ohio played in this issue, students will analyze two primary source documents from two very different people.

An eighteenth-century map, several illustrations by Europeans of Africans from Sierra Leone, and two eighteenth-century narratives depicting Sierra Leone natives through the eyes of two British physicians who describe the peoples they...

Second graders will view background information on the Underground Railroad in Ohio and will read and discuss primary source letters and sermons by Rev. John Rankin on slavery.

The number of Africans who died or were enslaved as a result of slave trading both across the Atlantic and into the Arabian peninsula is truly shocking. Read about the Middle Passage which brought millions of slaves to the New World, see...

From the World Socialist Web Site, this is a review of Harvard professor Henry Gates' book, "Wonders of the African World." It includes interesting details of Gates' attempts to piece together a view of precolonial African history. (4...

Read about the slave trade and use of slaves in agriculture and mining in Spanish America in the New World. Find out why it was expedient to use African slaves.

A timeline of African-American history from when the first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619 up to the present.

A very good description of how Africans were enslaved in Africa for sale to the Europeans. See how the introduction of European weapons changed the dynamic in West Africa.

The fist African American to earn a PhD from Harvard, W.E.B. DuBois was not only an inspirational and extraordinary individual, but a champion in the fight for equality and the end of racism. Read about his founding of the organization...

Historical background of the reasons for European exploration of Africa. Tutorial Links to further European trade and exploration.

This site from PBS' Africans in America series provides a biography of Olaudah Equiano, one of the many Africans forced to travel the Middle Passage. Links to related entries.

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.