LibGuides: LBST2010: Liberal Studies Colloquium (Slavery and Freedom from the American Revolution through the Early Republic): Web-Based Digital Collections

Web-Based Digital Collections

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture and Law (from HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
This full-text database provides a wealth of primary and secondary source materials for research into the history of slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. It includes legal case and trial transcripts and court opinions, debates, histories, legislative and other government reports, letters, literary works, pamphlets, poems and songs, conference and convention proceedings, organizational reports, slave narratives, memoirs, sermons and speeches, legal treatises, and other materials. Over 1,400 titles representing every perspective from pro-slavery advocacy to radical abolitionism are included. Approximately 75 percent of the materials in the database were originally published in the nineteenth century, but the database also includes both 18th and 20th century works. Personal accounts can be created to store "bookmarks" and notes for selected documents, and to save search queries for re-use.
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection, 1684-1912 This link opens in a new window
This database provides full-text access to over 7,500 historic periodicals published between 1684 and 1912, digitized from the extensive collections of the American Antiquarian Society, a major research library of pre-twentieth century American history and culture. The periodicals cover a vast array of subjects, including agriculture, applied science and technology, art and literature, business, education, music, politics, religion, and women's studies, and they offer students and faculty broad access to unique source material for research into American history and culture prior to the twentieth century. The database contains scanned page images of the original periodicals, and it supports the bookmarking and annotation of individual documents with a personal account, the export of documents to PDF format, and the ability to create direct links to specific documents.

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition: Located at Yale University, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition is "dedicated to the investigation and dissemination of information concerning all aspects of the Atlantic slave system and its destruction." Created by a major gift from Richard Gilder, the Center's Web site provides detailed information about the fellowships, conferences, publications, and educational materials that are a part of the Center's diverse set of activities. Researchers and students will want to first examine the Source Documents section, which features primary and secondary source materials related to slavery, slave resistance, and the abolitionist movement. Also, visitors will want to examine the Bibliographies section, which contains extended bibliographies on topics such as "Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa." Finally, scholars will want to examine the materials about the Center's fellowships, which support research projects that are complementary to the aims of the Center. [Internet Scout Project]
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center: Before 1863, the Underground Railroad was a system of cooperation among Black slaves, abolitionists, sympathetic Whites, and Native Americans to help slaves escape the bondage of American slavery. The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center wants to educate the public about the legacy of the Underground Railroad and its historic struggle to abolish human enslavement. The Freedom Center is sponsored by the Federated Department Stores Foundation and has the mission of teaching lessons of courage and cooperation from Underground Railroad history in order to "promote collaborative learning, dialogue, and action to inspire today’s freedom movements." Exhibits include history galleries on pre-slavery African Kingdoms and post-slavery freedom movements in North America, Poland, South Africa, India, and more. [Internet Scout Project]
Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: This site offers downloadable raw data and documentation on 11 topics related to the 18th- and 19th-century slave trade, including records of slave ship movement between Africa and the Americas 1817-1843, the 18th-century Virginia slave trade, and slave trade to Jamaica 1782-1788 and 1805-1808. Data sets contain information such as port of departure, vessel and owner information, number of slaves carried, origins of slaves, and ports of arrival. Each data set includes a 250-word description explaining bibliographic information, file inventory, and methodology, as well as a codebook that guides users in reading the data. [Internet Scout Project]
The Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony: During the Civil War, Roanoke Island, located between the coast of North Carolina and the Outer Banks, became a refuge for escaped slaves, called contrabands or freedmen. This site, created by University of Virginia professor Patricia C. Click presents an account of the history and selected documents and maps of the Roanoke Island Freedmens Colony, as the community was known. Documents include letters from Superintendent of the Colony, Horace James, a minister and abolitionist from Massachusetts, and letters from Freedmen themselves. The documents have been transcribed and are in PDF format, so users should not expect to see scanned versions of 19th century originals. The projects section includes seven projects for high school and college students, using historical materials at the site, and from other related Web sites. Professor Click has written a book, Time Full of Trial: The Roanoke Island Freedmen‚s Colony, 1862-1867, and the Preview section contains the table of contents and Chapter One. Links in the site refer to this book for more information; in the Maps section users are referred to its online ordering instructions for more information on the layout of the colony. [Internet Scout Project]
Lest We Forget: The Triumph Over Slavery: In conjunction with the United Nations resolution designating 2004 as the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition, New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture presents this Web exhibit. Making use of Schomburg Center materials, as well as items loaned by other public institutions and private collections, the Web exhibition begins with a section entitled "A New People" that traces the complex genetic heritage of today's African-Americans--the vast majority descended from enslaved Africans--but also counting Europeans, Native Americans, and Asians among their ancestors. Shackles and coffle chains, currency used in the 16th to 19th centuries to buy and sell slaves, and artwork depicting the horrors of the slave trade are some the artifacts in "The Long March". "Slave Labor and Slave Systems" outlines the skilled and unskilled labor that African slaves were brought to the Americas to do, from sugar plantations in Brazil to cotton plantations in the southern United States. The exhibition also includes sections on the abolition of slavery in the United States, family life, religion, education, and "Expressive Culture", describing the influence of Africans on music, art, speech and dress in the U.S. [Internet Scout Project]
Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860: This online collection, containing approximately 105 documents, raises a miniature magnifying glass into a corridor of Americas past and discloses the experiences of African and African American slaves in America, with a few cases involving Great Britain. The documents, which were taken primarily from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, consists of "trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance" dating mostly from the nineteenth century. Notable entries include the Boston Slave Riot, and Trial of Anthony Burns; A Brief Sketch of the Trial of William Lloyd Garrison; The Case of Dred Scott in the United States Supreme Court; and the Trial of John Brown. Viewers can search the collection by keyword, or browse by subject, author, or title index. [Internet Scout Project]
Black History at Harpweek: Harpweek is a privately funded project begun in 1992 to digitize the entire contents of the nineteenth-century, illustrated periodical Harper's Weekly. The full database is only available by subscription, but Black History at Harpweek is one of a series of free resources that explore various themes using text and illustrations from Harper's. Black History features a timeline that lists the major events of slavery from the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia in 1619 to the raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859, plus two more timelines on the Civil War and Reconstruction. There are also many illustrations, such as the often reproduced Alfred Waud engraving of the first Black man to vote, the cover of the November 16, 1867 issue, and drawings and engravings that are the only action pictures from Civil War battlefields. One of these, "The Fight at Milikin's Bend," is accompanied by an account of the fighting and an editorial on the bravery of Negro troops, dated June 20, 1863. [Internet Scout Project]
Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories: As part of the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress, this engaging website offers first-hand audio recollections of the experience of slavery in the American South from 23 African-Americans. The interviews themselves were originally conducted between 1932 and 1975, and contain memories of their lives that include discussions of their feelings on slavery, their families, and on freedom. It is not terribly surprising that very limited biographical information is available about each participant, though the special exhibit that is also available here (titled Faces and Voices From the Presentation), features photographs of some of the interviewees, such as Fountain Hughes, Uncle Bob Ledbetter, and George Johnson. As some of the audio recordings contain a good deal of background noise (and in some cases are incomplete), visitors may also want to follow along by viewing the full-text transcriptions as well. One interview that visitors will want to make sure and listen to is the one with Uncle Billy McCrea conducted in 1940, in which he sings both Blow Cornie Blow and Walk Dooley. [Internet Scout Project]
From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909: This collection of pamphlets written by African-American authors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries boasts "complete page images of 397 titles ... as well as searchable electronic texts and bibliographic records." Part of the Library of Congress's American Memory project, the pamphlets constitute a wonderful collection of online primary resources in African-American history. Users can examine works here by pivotal black writers, such as Frederick Douglass, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington. The materials deal with slavery, emancipation, African colonization, and related topics; and range from "personal accounts and public orations to organizational reports and legislative speeches." The collection is searchable by keywords and browseable by subject, author, and title. The pamphlets serve as a useful complement to the earlier American Memory Collection "African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907." [Internet Scout Project]
The Frederick Douglass Papers: The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his freedom by becoming an outspoken anti-slavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The online collection, containing approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images), spans the years 1841-1964, with the bulk of the material dating from 1862 to 1865. Many of Douglass’s earlier writings were destroyed when his house in Rochester, New York, burned in 1872.
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia: The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers. Building on the rich descriptions of individual slaves and servants in the ads, the project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War. [Internet Scout Project]
New York Public Library Picture Collection Online: Part of NYPL's evolving Digital Library, the Picture Collection Online is a collection of 30,000 public domain digital images from books and periodicals, original photographs, prints, and postcards. Primarily dated pre-1923, the Picture Collections includes some of the most popular images in the NYPL collection. The physical collection is housed in folders by broad subject headings, which can be browsed online. Keyword and advanced searches are also provided. [Internet Scout Project]
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is the culmination of several decades of independent and collaborative research by scholars drawing upon data in libraries and archives around the Atlantic world. It contains information on almost 36,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The actual number is estimated to have been as high as 12.5 million. The database and the separate estimates interface offer researchers, students and the general public a chance to rediscover the reality of one of the largest forced movements of peoples in world history.

New York Slavery Records Index
The New York Slavery Records Index is a searchable compilation of records that identify individual enslaved persons and their owners, beginning as early as 1525 and ending during the Civil War. The data come from census records, slave trade transactions, cemetery records, birth certifications, manumissions, ship inventories, newspaper accounts, private narratives, legal documents and many other sources. The index contains over 35,000 records and will continue to grow as John Jay College professors and students locate and assemble data from additional sources. The goal is to deepen the understanding of slavery in New York by bringing together information that until now has been largely disconnected and difficult to access. This allows for searches that combine records from all indexed sources based on parameters such as the name of an owner, a place name, and date ranges.
The Forced Migration of Enslaved People in the United States, 1810-1860
"The Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) at the University of Richmond has created this digital humanities project that illuminates the forced migration of enslaved individuals in the American South between 1810 and 1859. This project features data from the Minnesota Population Center's National Historical Geographic Information System (IPUMS NHGIS) as well as passages from historical narratives, such as Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House and Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave. The Forced Migration of Enslaved People consists of four parts. The first is an interactive map that allows visitors to track out-migration and in-migration data across southern counties over time. In doing so, this map offers information about the slave trade in the South. The map also contains a series of pin marks that indicate locations described in historical narratives. By clicking on the pin mark, visitors can read passages from these narratives. To learn more about the slave trade and forced migration over time, visitors can use the timeline tool, which appears just below the map. As users select different decades, they will see migration statistics for that decade along with information about the location of cotton and sugar plantations. Finally, visitors can also view a bubble map (available in the data section) that provides a visualization of migrations in and out of a specific state or county. This project offers powerful insights into the violence of slavery." [Internet Scout Project]
Liberated Africans Project
"During the nineteenth century, a number of individuals and organizations from around the globe advocated abolishing slavery and the international slave trade. Between 1808 and 1896, international authorities began to seize and detain ships suspected of participating in the slave trade. Once these ships were seized or detained, a network of international courts 'decided the fates of the survivors.' In total, these courts secured the freedom of 250,000 enslaved Africans - approximately 6% of the total number of Africans forced into slavery during this time period. The Liberated Africans project aims to uncover the story of these individuals, as well as the stories behind 'the world's earliest international courts dedicated to the humanitarian effort to stop human trafficking.' To do so, this project provides access to archival materials relating to this court case, including records held in the British National Archives and the Sierra Leone National Archives. Researchers can explore these archival materials by court (including the Sierra Leone Vice-Admiralty Court and the Havana Slave Trade Commission), cases, people, or by document ("source"). The Liberated Africans project is headed by historian Henry Lovejoy of the University of Colorado Boulder and contains contributions from numerous researchers and other specialists. " [Internet Scout Project]
Fire and Freedom: Food and Enslavement in Early America
"As the introduction to this National Library of Medicine online exhibit notes, '[m]eals can tell us how power is exchanged between and among different peoples, races, genders, and classes.' In this five-part exhibit, visitors can learn more about how food was grown, traded, and cooked in early eighteenth century North America. Through a variety of artifacts (including an eighteenth-century rolling pin, a couple of pages from Charles Carter's 1732 The Compleat City and Country Cook, and Gilbert Stuart's portrait that likely portrays George Washington's enslaved cook Hercules) this exhibit examines the ways in which food and the violence of slavery were closely intertwined. While white plantation owners relied on the expertise and labor of enslaved individuals in order to eat, '[s]lavery put in place social and culinary boundaries that could separate those who ate from those who worked.'" [Internet Scout Project]
North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920
"The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries' Documenting the American South project brings us this collection of eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and early twentieth-century slave narratives. The collection comprises 230 English-language narratives and many biographies of fugitive and former slaves. The texts were originally published as broadsides, pamphlets, and books, and users can now access the narratives in HTML or SGML format via an alphabetical list. William L. Andrews, the editor of the series, has provided a very helpful 'Introduction to the Slave Narrative' as well as an alphabetical and a chronological bibliography. As with the other four components of Documenting the American South, this is a well organized and rich resource." [Internet Scout Project]
Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860
"This online collection, containing approximately 105 documents, raises a miniature magnifying glass into a corridor of Americas past and discloses the experiences of African and African American slaves in America, with a few cases involving Great Britain. The documents, which were taken primarily from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, consists of 'trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance' dating mostly from the nineteenth century. Notable entries include the Boston Slave Riot, and Trial of Anthony Burns; A Brief Sketch of the Trial of William Lloyd Garrison; The Case of Dred Scott in the United States Supreme Court; and the Trial of John Brown. Viewers can search the collection by keyword, or browse by subject, author, or title index." [Internet Scout Project]
Slavery in New York
"The diversity of the city of New York for many seems to be one of the best examples of America’s 'melting pot', and for many people around the world, Gotham is the city that first comes to mind when thinking about America’s great urban metropolises. It is of course no surprise to many informed members of the public that the city was also at the heart of the slave trade for close to two hundred years, a fact that seems to stand in stark contrast with the openness of today’s city. This well-designed online exhibition, created by the New York Historical Society explores this aspect of the city’s history through the use of interactive galleries and multimedia presentations that include interviews from National Public Radio with the curators of the exhibition. The section titled 'Free Blacks in New York’s Public Life' (contained within Gallery 6) is definitely worth a closer look, as it looks at how blacks were portrayed in paintings and other rendering during the Federalist period." [Internet Scout Project]
Slavery Narratives
"With a powerful narration by Dr. Maya Angelou, the opening frames of the Slave Narratives website pique even the most casual visitors’ interest immediately. Created by the Museum of the African Diaspora (based in San Francisco), the site features an innovative interface that allows users to roll over a series of multicolored dots to learn about the first-hand perspectives of slaves such as Francis Bok, Mary Prince, Fountain Hughes, Harriet Jacobs, and Juan Francisco Manzano. As Dr. Angelou’s voice intones an introduction to each individual’s narrative, visitors can read a transcript of their story, or just listen along. Visitors who wish to learn more will want to consult the Resources area which includes bibliographic information for related works that tell of such experiences." [Internet Scout Project]
African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
"Massachusetts was home to a number of powerful abolitionist and anti-slavery groups during the 18th and 19th centuries, and this fine online exhibition created by the Massachusetts Historical Society brings together a number of primary documents that tell the stories of African Americans and abolitionist movements in the commonwealth. With financial assistance from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Society has crafted an exhibition that is divided into a number of thematic sections, including 'The Struggle for Freedom', 'The Legal End of Slavery in Massachusetts', and 'Revolutionary Participation'. Each of these sections contains an informative essay, coupled with images of historical documents ranging from receipts for slaves to letters written by various individuals involved in the anti-slavery movement. Visitors will also appreciate such little-seen gems as letters from African Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War." [Internet Scout Project]
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia
"Created by Tom Costa on behalf of the University of Virginia, the Geography of Slavery in Virginia presents full transcriptions and images of over 4,000 runaway and captured ads for slaves and servants placed in Virginia newspapers from 1736 to 1790. Additionally, the project offers a number of documents related to slaves, servants, and slaveholders, including court records, other newspapers notices, slaveholder correspondence, and assorted literature about slavery and indentured servitude. Photos of advertisements for escaped slaves, often situated beside other ads describing missing livestock, offer a chilling reminder of a time when humans were considered property. Users of the site can browse the advertisements by month or by location, or use the full-text search. The Essays area contains a rather fine piece which places Virginia slavery into the context of the larger colonial America and Atlantic picture." [Internet Scout Project]
Antislavery Pamphlet Collection, 1725-1911
"The digital collections at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst are top-flight and this collection continues that grand tradition. The Antislavery Collection contains several hundred pamphlets and books pertaining to slavery and antislavery in New England from 1725-1911. These items include speeches, sermons, proceedings, and other publications from organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society, the American Colonization Society, and a small number of pro-slavery tracts. Visitors can browse the selected titles alphabetically or perform a more detailed search across all of the items. Several documents should not be missed, including speeches by Horace Mann and Ezra Gannett's 'Relation of the North to Slavery' delivered in Boston in 1854." [Internet Scout Project]

Subject Guide

Richard Kearney

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Contact:

Electronic Resources Librarian
Reference and Information Services Office, Room 107g
David and Lorraine Cheng Library
William Paterson University
300 Pompton Road
Wayne, NJ 07470

973-720-2165

Subjects: Art, Business, Economics, Finance, and Global Business, History, Liberal Studies, Open Access / Open Educational Resources