Research Guides: *United States History American History: Slavery

Primary Sources on Slavery

Primary sources on slavery, general

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents related to slavery, United States and elsewhere.

Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
Images from the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
Slave Voyages
Records of voyages and estimates of slave trade volume, as well as an African name database of enslaved persons. Includes Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, Intra-American Slave Trade, and People of the Atlantic Slave Trade databases.
In Motion: African American Migration Sources
Images, maps and texts related to the transatlantic and domestic slave trade, runaway slaves, and emigration.
Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names
Documents from the Virginia Historical Society, indexed by name.
African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
Available online and as print collection (request from Bowdoin).
Slave Societies Digital Archive
Images and documents from Angola, Benin, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cuba, and Spanish Florida.
Mapping Marronage
Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade
Historical records of enslaved people.
Digital Library on American Slavery
Documents related to slavery such as deeds and petitions. Maintained at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Narratives and testimony of enslaved people

Index to The American Slave
Index by name and subject to Rawick's American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, a collection of slave narratives collected by the Federal Writers' Project and other efforts, in print at E441 .A58.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938
Ex-slave interviews.
North American Slave Narratives
Part of the "Documenting the American South" collection.
American Memory Collections on African American History
Includes full-text slave narratives and pamphlets.
Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies
Collection of primary sources. In print at E444 .S57.

Runaway slave advertisements

Geography of Slavery in Virginia
Digital collection of advertisements for fugitive and captured enslaved people and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers.
North Carolina Runaway Slave Advertisements (1751 - 1840)
Texas Runaway Slave Project
Louisiana Runaway Slave Advertisements, 1836-1865
"Pretends to Be Free" : Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey
In print at E445.N56 P74 1994.
Runaway Slave Ads, Baltimore County Maryland

Emancipation sources

Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation
Multi-volume print collection of primary sources on the destruction of slavery, the black military experience, and freedmen labor relations. Selected documents available online.
Registers and letters received by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872
Microfilm E185.93.S7 U5 1973
Visualizing Emancipation
Online map of slavery's end during the Civil War.
Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery
Ads placed by formerly enslaved people looking for loved ones from all over the United States and sometimes from as far away as Africa.

Abolitionism sources

U.S. Antislavery Movement Newspapers
Black Abolitionist Archive
Collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum black abolitionists and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period.
Freewill Baptist Collection
Materials in the Muskie Archives
Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress
Black Abolitionist Papers
Print collection of letters, speeches, pamphlets, essays, and newspaper editorials. Also available online.
Slavery and Abolition, 1789-1887
Related periodicals from the collection of the American Antiquarian Society.
Slavery & Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s

Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) This link opens in a new window
Search for slavery, slaves or abolition of slavery for related newspaper articles, diaries, letters, pamphlets and other primary sources.
Includes Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, British Politics and Society, British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture, Children's Literature and Childhood, Europe and Africa: Commerce, Christianity, Civilization, and Conquest, European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection, Mapping the World: Maps and Travel Literature, Photography: The World through the Lens, Religion, Society, Spirituality, and Reform, Science, Technology, and Medicine: 1780-1925, and Women: Transnational Networks.

Legal aspects

Slavery, Race, and the American Legal System
Reprints of pamphlets originally published between 1700 - 1872. KF 4545.S5 A5, 4 vol.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
Legal materials on slavery, including statutes and cases.

Slavery and higher education

Georgetown Slavery Archive
Documents related to slavery practiced by Maryland Jesuits.
Princetown and Slavery
Columbia University & Slavery
Scarlet and Black: An Exploration of the African-American and Native American Experience at Rutgers
Slavery at South Carolina College, 1801–1865: The Foundations of the University of South Carolina
Enslaved Children of George Mason

See the guide "United States History: Primary Sources" for broader list of primary sources for U.S. history.

Relevant Subject Headings

Any of these subjects can be combined in a LibrarySearch Advanced Search with Subject: diaries OR correspondence OR narratives OR sources OR speeches OR interviews to locate primary sources in published form.

The same subject headings work in WorldCat and HathiTrust, which will expand your search beyond CBB.

Topic Overviews

Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Includes African American National Biography, Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895, and other reference works.
Limited to one user at a time.

Atlantic History - Oxford Bibliography
Great starting point for research, with lists of relevant works by topic.

World of a Slave: Encyclopedia of the Material Life of Slaves in the United States
Location: Reference E441 .W895 2011
The Cambridge Companion to the African American Slave Narrative
PS366.A35 C36 2007. Online and in print.
The Harvard Guide to African-American History
Location: Reference E185 .H326 2001
Published: 2001
The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas
Location: HT1048 .O94 2010 and online
Published: 2010
The Oxford Handbook of the African American Slave Narrative
Published: 2014
The Cambridge World History of Slavery by Keith Bradley; Paul Cartledge, David Eltis, Stanley L. Engerman
Published: 2011
Slavery and Slaving in World History: a Bibliography, 1900-91 by David Y. Miller
Location: Bates Reference Z7164.S6 M544 1998
Published: 1998