Featured Sites
- “American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology.” A very rich resource from University of Virginia. Includes not only many of the best known slave narratives but excerpts from Works Progress Administration slave oral histories, including some sound recordings of ex-slaves telling their stories.
- “From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909.” Rich collection of pamphlets from the Library of Congress American Memory Project. The 397 titles include first-person accounts of slavery, tracts from anti-slavery organizations, legislative and presidential campaign materials, investigative reports, sermons, commencement addresses, organizational proceedings, and previously published materials from newspapers and magazines. Among the noted authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Lydia Maria Child, Alexander Crummell, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington.
- “Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-38.” Extraordinary site from the American Memory Project, based on the famous taped interviews with former slaves.
Some Key Sites
- Museum of Slavery in the Atlantic. Links to historical documents and other resources.
- Fugitive Slave Laws, 1793 and 1850. Key legal documents in history of slavery.
- American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology. See above under “featured sites.”
- Excerpts from Slave Narratives. Another useful site, from University of Houston, that includes some different texts from those at the Virginia.
- Confessions of Nat Turner. Turner (1800-31) led the most (in)famous slave revolt in the US.
- Harriet Tubman homepage. One of the key figures in the “Underground Railroad” for escaping slaves.
- Brief history of abolitionist Underground Railroad as it ran through Rochester, NY.
- Frederick Douglass, a biographical essay. Sandra Thomas (University of Rochester).
- My Escape from Slavery. Frederick Douglass (The Century Illustrated Magazine 23, n.s. 1 (Nov. 1881): 125-131.
- A Plea for Free Speech in Boston. Frederick Douglass (Dec. 4, 1860).
- Fourth of July Address. Frederick Douglass.
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.
- Last Meeting of Frederick Douglass and John Brown. Excerpted from Douglass Life and Times.
- Brief biography of Frederick Douglass and excerpts from several speeches. A commercial site selling recordings of readings of Douglass's speeches.
- Our Nig. Harriet Wilson.
- Slavery in Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau (1854).
- Stand from Under. Lydia Maria Child (originally published in The Liberator).
- Selection from Sociology of the South (1854). George Fitzhugh, a leading opponent of abolition.
- The Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln (1863).
- “From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909.” Rich collection of pamphlets from the Library of Congress American Memory Project. See above under “featured sites.”
