Slavery

Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown details the final chapter of the radical abolitionist who led the raid on Harpers Ferry. It includes his courtroom statements and legal proceedings, highlighting the national attention to his execution for treason against Virginia. It emphasizes Brown…

In this courtroom argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, attorney Roger S. Baldwin defended the African captives of the Amistad, who had seized control of the Spanish schooner after being illegally enslaved and transported. Baldwin contended that the Africans were victims of international slave…

Proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, these constitutional amendments aimed to resolve the secession crisis by permanently protecting slavery where it existed. The plan would have extended the Missouri Compromise line (36°30′) westward, barring slavery north of it while allowing it…

In early 1861, delegates from 21 states met in Washington, D.C. in a last-ditch effort to prevent Southern secession and civil war. The resulting proposal, known as the Peace Conference Amendments, sought to constitutionally protect slavery where it already existed and preserve existing conditions…

The Crittenden Compromise was proposed as an effort to prevent the Civil War. It aimed to constitutionally protect slavery in existing states and extend it into territories located south of the Missouri Compromise line. Introduced by Senator John J. Crittenden, the compromise included six…

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth tells the story of a formerly enslaved woman who became a influential abolitionist and women's rights advocate. Written with Olive Gilbert, it details her life in slavery, escape to freedom, and her spiritual awakening as a traveling preacher. The narrative…

The Ostend Manifesto was a 1854 document that urged the United States to forcefully acquire Cuba from Spain. Driven by Southerners seeking to expand slavery and maintain political power, the manifesto argued for Cuba's annexation due to its location, weather, and potential rise of a slave…

On Wednesday, February 1st, 1865. The New York Tribune’s front page celebrated our country’s newfound freedom.

Created by former Director of Educational Services for Fourscore, Kimberly Hase Galek, this timeline presents the history of the abolitionist movement and slavery in the United States from 1775-1865.

EXCERPTS

Following Nat Turner’s rebellion, and fearing the rise of the abolition movement in the North, slaveholders throughout the South strengthened laws governing slaves and free people of color, known as “black codes.” The black codes governed enslaved people as well as four…

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a slave narrative that was published in 1861 by Harriet Ann Jacobs, using the pen name “Linda Brent”. Above is the front page of the first edition.

On January 1, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator, a militant abolitionist newspaper that was one of the country's first publications to demand an immediate end to slavery. On the front page of the first issue, he defiantly declared: "I will not equivocate--I will not…

In May of 1822, Charlestonians uncovered a plot for a slave insurrection planned for July. Denmark Vesey, a free black man who purchased his freedom in 1800, was the leader of the alleged insurrection, which planned to take the city of Charleston. After a lengthy trial, Vesey and over thirty…

President Lincoln addressed the nation in 1862 declaring all enslaved people in rebellious or as we know it, confederate- states free men; it didn't take effect until January 1, 1863. Although this didn’t officially end slavery in the Deep South for many, it became a stepping stone to the…

President Lincoln ended slavery in D.C, 8 1/2 months before he would end slavery nationwide. Former owners who remained loyal to the union were paid for each enslaved freed.

In 1846 Dred Scott sued for his and his wife's freedom; it became an 11-year battle that was one of the factors for the Civil War. The Supreme Court ruled that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States, thus not receiving protection from federal and local government.

Due to pressure from Southern politicians, the 1793 fugitive slave act was revisited and reintroduced in 1850 with harsher penalties for helpers who harbored and more imposed laws on the enslaved. A group of bills was proposed to help quiet the rise of southern succession.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 required enslaved people who escaped the North to be brought back to their masters if recaptured. it annulled the thirteenth amendment's abolition of slavery and gave local and state laws the authority to do so; in doing so, it also declared it unconstitutional…

The original rough draft of The Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson, includes a passage that condemns slavery and King George's involvement in it. This draft was very controversial because of the Southern and Northern delegates who represented merchants actively involved in…

The Emancipation Proclamation was a document issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, that declared enslaved people in the rebellious states of the Confederacy to be free. It was a significant moment in the American Civil War and is considered one of the most important documents in…

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> A southern woman’s memoir of a by-gone era</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Without doubt they were Washington, who walked carefully within the Constitution, and Lincoln, who stretched it as far as he dared</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Packed like animals in the holds of slave ships, Negroes bound for America were prey to disease, brutal masters, and their own suicidal melancholy.</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> For some men the only solution to the dilemma of blacks and whites together was for the blacks to go back where they came from</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The black laborers on John Williams’ plantation never seemed to leave or complain. It took some digging to find out why</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Harriet Beecher Stowe, an extraordinary member of an extraordinary family, always claimed that God wrote</span> Uncle Tom’s Cabin</p>

<p><span class="deck"> Sure that he was divinely appointed, Nat Turner led fellow slaves in a bloody attempt to overthrow their masters</span> </p>

<p>Was there really a conspiracy to burn the town?</p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> While some American captives languished, others conducted a flourishing market—and a huge black sailor organized everything</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">THE BLACK SLAVE DRIVER</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> PRESIDENT LINCOLN MOVES AT LAST<br />
Influence of “Advanced Republicans” Seen as Crucial to the Outcome<br />
THE UNION UNITED STILL<br />
THE PRESIDENT’S TACT &amp; COURAGE<br />
HE WAITED ON THE PROPER HOUR<br />
JUBILATION AMONG THE BLACKS<br />
They Stand Ready to Defend With Arms the Rights Thus Gained<br />
NEW LIGHT SHED ON THE PARTICULARS OF THE GREAT DRAMA </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">How the mistress of the plantation became a slave</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Thousands of them sided with Great Britain, only to become the wandering children of the American Revolution</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">More than the Revolution, more than the Constitutional Convention, it was the crucial test of the American nation. The author of <em><span class="typestyle"> Battle Cry of Freedom</span></em>, the most successful recent book on the subject, explains why the issues that fired the Civil War are as urgent in 1990 as they were in 1861. </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">While the American Revolution was still being fought, Mum Bett declared that the new nation’s principle of liberty must extend to her, too. It took 80 years and a far-more-terrible war to confirm the rights that she had demanded.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Sociologists continue to be vexed by the pathology of urban violence: Why is it so random, so fierce, so easily triggered? One answer may be found in this nation's Southern past.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Deep South states are taking the lead in promoting landmarks of a 300-year heritage of oppression and triumph, and they’re drawing visitors from around the world.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">On the 25th anniversary of the most controversial historical novel in memory, the author of <em><span class="typestyle"> The Confessions of Nat Turner</span> </em>speaks of a novelist’s duty to history and fiction’s strange power not only to astonish, but to enrage.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The struggles and torments of a forgotten class in antebellum America: black slaveowners</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">BORN IN SLAVERY AND RAISED IN ITS PAINFUL AFTERMATH TO BECOME ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL AMERICAN ICONS, SHE HAS BEEN MADE TO ENCOMPASS LOVE AND GUILT AND RIDICULE AND WORSHIP, AND STILL SHE LIVES ON.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">How a half-dozen pillars of the community became infatuated with the idea of shedding (someone else’s) blood</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The saga of Liberia’s beginnings reflects both America’ humanitarian generosity and its racism.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">THE VISITORS WHO COME HERE FOR THE OLYMPICS this summer won’t find Tara. What they will find is a city facing an unusual and sometimes painful past with clarity of vision and generosity of spirit.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Should our leaders say they’re sorry about slavery? About Indians? About their personal behavior? Such questions are hardly new; public contrition has been a national preoccupation for centuries.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">THE FUGITIVE</span></p>

<p>A century and a half of the U.S. economy, from the railroad revolution to the information revolution</p>